7 ChatGPT Alternatives for 2023: Free & Paid AI Chatbots Tested – Tech.co
ChatGPT is taking the world by storm – and that’s putting it lightly. Over 100 million people are said to have initiated a conversation with the AI chatbot since its release last November, and social media is awash with screenshots of the fascinating interactions people have had with it. Since then, a whole ecosystem of ChatGPT alternatives has emerged.
Why? Well, ChatGPT is often at full capacity and inaccessible to new users. What’s more, Microsoft, which bankrolled ChatGPT creators OpenAI, is already exploring ways to commercialize the technology, such as adding it to the new Microsoft Teams Premium. At this rate, it’s unlikely to be free for much longer.
The state of play means businesses exploring how they can use AI to their benefit are already on the hunt for tools that are similar to ChatGPT. We’ve had a look at the best ChatGPT alternatives currently on the market – and we think ChatSonic is the most capable one out there. Read on to find out more about the platform, as well as six other options that all bring something different to the table.
Below, we’ve listed the top ChatGPT alternatives. They’re all quite similar to ChatGPT and are available for use right now. We recently included Google’s Bard AI after Google granted us access, and we’ll continue to conduct more tests every time a major AI chatbot is released.
ChatGPT struggles to talk accurately about events that happened after 2021, which is one of several downsides to the chatbot. With that in mind, here are all the best ChatGPT alternatives:
But it doesn’t stop there. We wanted to make this a comprehensive guide to all the best ChatGPT alternatives on the market – so we’ve also included everything you need to know about:
Price from: Free (for now)
Set Up: Personal Google account required
Best ChatGPT AI alternative for: Human-like responses
After the ChatGPT was launched, it was only a matter of time before Google released its very own ChatGPT alternative – and they’ve named it “Bard”. It’s based on LamDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a completely different language model from the one powering ChatGPT.
Connect an unlimited number of devices for just $2.49 per month.
The big difference between ChatGPT and Bard is the data they use to generate answers. Bard extracts information straight from the internet, whereas ChatGPT is trained in datasets that end in 2021, which is why Bard answered our question about tech layoffs that took place in 2022 more accurately than ChatGPT.
Until recently, you had to join a waiting list to use Bard AI – you couldn’t just make a free account like you can for ChatGPT. But now, Google has lifted the waiting list and anyone can use Bard. We’ve taken it out for a spin already though, so take a look below to see how it answered our test questions:
Bard’s start to life has been pretty chaotic so far – its release managed to wipe $100 billion off Google’s shares after promotional marketing content accidentally showed the chatbot serving incorrect information to a nine-year-old’s query. Employees have since criticized the launch as “rushed”.
ChatSonic is a chatbot created by AI content generation platform WriteSonic, and it’s one of the more useful ChatGPT AI alternatives currently available. Best of all, it won’t cost you a cent to use.
ChatSonic is built on top of the same technology that powers ChatGPT, and as you can see from the image below, the interface isn’t a world away from its rival’s:
The AI platform will behave as a General AI chatbot if you’d like it to, but there are various personas it can assume, such as a philosopher, astrologer, or stand-up comedian, something which ChatGPT doesn’t offer at the moment.
ChatSonic has other advantages over ChatGPT too. For one, it can create AI-generated images, and you’ll be able to create 100 per month for free with ChatSonic:
On top of this, ChatSonic is connected to the internet – which means it’s able to provide real-time, up-to-date answers, especially concerning events that take place after 2021, of which ChatGPT has very limited knowledge.
If you find yourself locked out of ChatGPT and you don’t want to get to grips with a ChatGPT alternative just yet, then use OpenAI’s “Playground” tool.
OpenAI playground is very similar to ChatGPT on the surface and is effectively just a more experimental version of the same tool – it’s actually been open for public use for longer than its more finely-tuned cousin. It’s a lot more customizable on the whole – you can even select which language model you’d like it to use before you ask it any questions. OpenAI says that Davinci-003, which we used for the tests below, often answers questions with “higher quality, longer output, and better instruction following.”
As you can see from the image above, the OpenAI Playground user interface isn’t quite as straightforward as ChatGPT’s, so you might find it a little more difficult to use – but that’s the price you pay for the extra customization options.
When we’ve used OpenAI Playground, we’ve found that generally, it’s not as hesitant as ChatGPT when it comes to weighing in on complex, controversial topics, so you may get some interesting and unexpected answers while using it. However, it also, like ChatGPT, struggles with queries relating to events from after 2021.
YouChat is an AI chatbot and search assistant. It will provide you with similar answers to that of ChatGPT, but will also link you to webpages that relate to whatever query you choose to type in:
One advantage of YouChat is that you don’t even have to make an account, unlike ChatSonic and ChatGPT. Once you get onto the site, you can start using their AI Chatbot immediately. However, you will have to make an account if you want to continue your conversation with YouChat past its answer to your query.
You can certainly have conversations with YouChat, but much like ChatGPT, it’s better for condensing down complex information found on the internet and searching for information in a more efficient, quicker way. But unlike ChatGPT, YouChat will also show you an article written by a human, so it’s the best of both worlds if that’s your primary use case.
However, we did find YouChat slightly glitchier than ChatGPT and it decided to just not reply to a couple of queries we inputted into its search bar. Bear in mind, however, that it has only been fully operational since December 2022, so as is the case with ChatGPT, it’s likely to be further refined and improved.
Perplexity functions quite similarly to a search engine. However, Perplexity will produce an answer that combines information from top web results, rather than just providing you with a list like Google does. It’s not quite as big of a project as some of the other AI chatbots on this list, maintained by just a small, 8-person team – but it’s still an impressive ChatGPT AI alternative.
One thing that sets Perplexity apart is the way it neatly collates the sources used to create the answers it serves to users, which means you can judge whether they’re legitimate and credible.
You don’t have this power with ChatGPT, and in a world crippled by misinformation, it’s an excellent feature. ChatSonic also has this feature, but it doesn’t cite its sources every time as Perplexity does.
While using Perplexity, it was nice to have a list of related queries listed below every answer. An answer to any of the suggested queries can be generated instantly with a single click.
However, Perplexity did take slightly longer to produce an answer than some of the other entries to this list. Now that could be down to various factors (from site traffic to the tester’s internet connection) – but all the other chatbots on this list produced answers quicker.
Character AI does what it says on the tin – it’s an artificial intelligence program that allows users to converse with artificially constructed simulations of famous characters from movies and TV shows, as well as public figures and celebrities.
One neat feature of Character AI is you can build your own character bot very easily. All you have to do is come up with what you want your chatbot to do and set a few parameters – after that, Character AI will leaf through huge troves of literature and written text to ensure the AI bot sounds like you intend it to.
Character AI does have its downsides. When we tested it, we found that some responses weren’t necessarily “out of character”, but weren’t particularly “in character” either – although these Super Mario and Elon Musk simulations certainly were:
Plus, its answers are definitely not as consistently accurate or as useful as the ChatGPT – it’s a bit more of a novelty tool to have a bit of fun with. If you’re just looking for an AI program to entertain you, then there aren’t many better than Character AI.
Jasper Chat is a powerful AI tool that can help advertising and marketing businesses producing online content scale their operations.
It’s effectively an AI content-generating robot that has significantly more business-focused features than the other ChatGPT alternatives on this list. It can write adverts, create captions for social media posts, produce video scripts, and much more.
Jasper Chat will also remember past queries, conversations, and prompts that you type into its interface and factor these into how it responds, which ChatGPT doesn’t have the capacity to do. However, it’s similar to ChatGPT in the sense that it struggles with information relating to events that took place post-2021.
Jasper has a $29 per month Starter plan, but if you purchase the $49 per month, however, Jasper Chat will generate 50,000 words, while features in the package include Compose & Command features, as well as a Google docs style editor.
ChatGPT is a fantastic resource for individuals and businesses, but as with every type of software, no matter how useful, it has some downsides.
Along with the ChatGPT alternatives featured in this article, Tech.co has also been experimenting with ChatGPT and tracking developments since it came out to see exactly what it’s capable of. During our testing, we’ve identified four major downsides:
While this article focuses on ChatGPT alternatives, here’s a quick rundown of other AI projects and dvelopments to be aware of.
Microsoft recently launched a new version of Bing with ChatGPT technology integrated into the search engine for more accurate, complex searches.
However, currently, it’s only available as a limited preview, which you can access by heading over to the Bing landing page. You’ll be able to see how it works for a few basic queries, but you won’t be able to use it like ChatGPT yet.
However, it’s expected that users will soon be able to sign up for the full version.
After the successful launch and uptake of ChatGPT, Micorosft has begun to roll out AI capabilities across a number of its products, including Bing, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook.
Within Microsoft Teams, you can now use Copilot to summarize meeting notes and generate subsequent action points. As Microsoft explains, Copilot ” creates a new knowledge model for every organization — harnessing the massive reservoir of data and insights that lies largely inaccessible and untapped today.”
OpenAI recently released the latest iteration of the artificial intelligence language model that underpins ChatGPT, called GPT-4.
Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, has called it the most capable model that the company has ever produced. GPT-4 is much better at tests than GPT-3.5, passing a bar exam with a score that fell in the top 10% of test takers, whereas GPT-3.5 came in the bottom 10%.
Preliminary testing also suggests that GPT-4 is better at managing requests for disallowed content, responding to them much less frequently than GPT-3.5.
DeepMind is a subsidiary of Alphabet inc. in much the same way ChatGPT creator OpenAI is a subsidiary of Microsoft – and it’s making headway in the world of AI with its own language models too.
“Chinchilla” is the name of DeepMind’s most advanced AI-powered language model. The company claims that Chinchilla is faster and more powerful than ChatGPT and Gopher, the latter being another highly capable language model created recently by DeepMind.
Members of the public are currently unable to roadtest products that use the Chinchilla AI language model – and unfortunately, we’re some time away from training a chatbot on it.
Here, we’ve put together a short list of some AI tools that aren’t quite websites like ChatGPT, but you’ll still find useful in your work or personal life.
QuillBot is not a straightforward ChatGPT alternative like ChatSonic or Perplexity, but it does specialize in rephrasing blocks of text.
You can customize exactly how much QuillBot will change, and there’s an AI thesaurus included if you want to take a bit more control over the paraphrasing of specific sentences.
Otter is a useful AI tool for transcribing and summarizing meetings and interviews, which can then be reviewed and edited by users.
It’s great for journalists, and there’s a mobile app for users who want to record and transcribe on the go.
Google Workspace customers might already be familiar with Otter – since 2021, it has been available as an integration for Google Meet’s 100 million users.
Browse.ai is a nifty little tool you can download as a browser extension. The tool lets you build “robots” and set them up to complete tasks of your choosing.
You can use Browse.ai for various purposes, such as tracking the price of products listed on specific websites, content aggregation, collecting bulk data on competitors, and even academic research.
ChatGPT is already being used by businesses and employees around the world, with innovative new use cases appearing every day. But one cursory glance through social media and you’ll quickly work out that ChatGPT’s responses often fall short of the mark.
YouChat and ChatSonic, however, are alternatives you should check out if you want a chatbot using real-time information, while OpenAI Playground is a great place to tinker with the ChatGPT’s settings if you’re interested in testing the limits of the technology.
If you’re exploring what AI can do for your business, make sure you test out those three to see how they fare against ChatGPT when it comes to complex queries – you might find yourself pleasantly surprised.
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Aaron Drapkin is a Lead Writer at Tech.co. He has been researching and writing about technology, politics, and society in print and online publications since graduating with a Philosophy degree from the University of Bristol five years ago. As a writer, Aaron takes a special interest in VPNs, cybersecurity, and project management software. He has been quoted in the Daily Mirror, Daily Express, The Daily Mail, Computer Weekly, Cybernews, and the Silicon Republic speaking on various privacy and cybersecurity issues, and has articles published in Wired, Vice, Metro, ProPrivacy, The Week, and Politics.co.uk covering a wide range of topics.
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