OpenAI’s ChatGPT has left virtually no aspect of life untouched. Its reach swiftly became global, influential and even overbearing, and its popularity is a real sign of the times of how artificial intelligence (AI) is used in contemporary society.
Bursting onto the scene in November 2022 from the San Francisco-based company OpenAI, ChatGPT emerged as a freely accessible AI platform. The AI chatbot immediately went viral and amassed one million users within the first five days of its launch, according to a tweet from its CEO Sam Altman.
Having once been difficult to imagine a kind of technology that could not only hold up a conversation with the subtleties of humour and nuance but actually learn from our interactions to become more intelligent, this was just what ChatGPT had achieved.
Designed to interpret user prompts and generate detailed responses, this advanced chatbot continues to serve an array of purposes, from composing emails to condensing articles, and from swiftly retrieving information to crafting extensive essays and reports.
With such diverse capabilities, ChatGPT has garnered a dedicated following, with many users relying on it exclusively for various tasks. However, for those exploring alternative chatbot options, there are numerous compelling alternatives worth considering.
Let’s delve deeper into the landscape of chatbot technology.
Is There An Alternative To ChatGPT?
While ChatGPT often dominates discussions surrounding generative AI, there are several excellent alternatives worth exploring.
Naturally, the initial query that may arise is: which one reigns supreme? However, this question lacks a definitive answer. It’s less about which alternatives are ‘better’ than ChatGPT and more to do with your preferences regarding the capabilities of the chatbot.
For example, some may be offered on a free basis whereas others require a subscription model. As each platform caters to distinct needs, such as assisting in sales and marketing, some may suit your requirements better. Furthermore, some bots may have a greater emphasis on customer support, while others may provide multilingual capabilities.
Ultimately, it’s important to identify the features that are important to you, and potentially your business, and prioritize these when selecting the most suitable chatbot alternative.
Besides delving into the features of each alternative, user reviews can serve as a valuable resource for insight.
To embark on this exploration of alternative chatbots, just keep reading.
Top 10 Alternatives To ChatGPT
1. Google Bard / Gemini
To find out all about the Google Gemini versus ChatGPT battle, view the bottom of this piece. Google Bard, or Gemini, has often been put in direct competition with ChatGPT as two bots battling it out for the top spot.
In this fight, many have favoured Google’s chatbot, and for good reason. Launched in March 2023, Gemini is Google’s conversational AI tool. Built on LaMDA software, it can assist with everything from writing to coding to numerical problems.
Google has had a continuous focus on updating Gemini with upgrades and extensions that allow you to, for example, pull together your Google apps like Gmail and Google Docs so you can use them simultaneously with the help of Bard. Trained in conversational data with the help of human reviewers, it has been praised for its human-like responses.
It also offers users a multimodal search option, allowing users to input pictures as well as text in the chatbot as a prompt and can even answer textual questions with photos to better exemplify what is it describing. Available in over 40 languages, Gemini is notably accessible and user-friendly worldwide.
2. OpenAI Playground
Although this is also produced by OpenAI, it remains an alternative to ChatGPT. Playground is a web-based platform for experimenting with Machine Learning models, gearing it towards developers who want to experiment with OpenAI’s various AI technologies.
According to Lifewire, this web-based interface allows users to choose between several AI models and respond to prompts based on the model chosen by the users. Offered on a free basis to users, this is a valuable platform for developers and researchers testing different AI models, though users need to pay to unlock the full version.
Better yet, for anyone wanting to develop their own chatbot models, Playground provides the perfect place to play to fine-tune existing models and create their own.
3. Perplexity AI
Perplexity is a powerful chatbot search engine that uses AI and NLP (natural language processing) to provide detailed responses to users submitted queries. Using advanced technology, Perplexity uses up-to-date information (already a one-up on the older versions of ChatGPT) to provide information on various topics, generate innovative content ideas, summarize pieces of content, and more.
This makes Perplexity ideal for anyone wanting a user-friendly both to find what they need and quickly and efficiently produce an in-depth analysis.
4. Chatsonic
This chatbot is ideal for anyone wanting an easy-to-use interface to generate content such as email drafts, blog posts, articles, social media posts, and more. With advanced NLP and ML technology and up-to-date Google data, Chatsonic can generate factual information, even on real-time topics, in the form of writing and images, helping users to obtain accurate information swiftly and effectively.
5. Microsoft Bing
Bing is Microsoft’s answer to the AI chatbot competition. Available to anybody with a Microsoft account, the Bing AI chatbot is a part of Microsoft’s Edge browser, meaning you must have the browser to access it. Once on the browser, the Bing chatbot can easily be accessed with the ‘Chat’ button.
This bot leverages AI to empower users and businesses with information upon receiving a query or prompt. A distinct advantage of this technology is that it gathers data as you use it, allowing to it create more tailored answers. Users are also given the interesting choice of getting a creative, precise or balanced answer, allowing them to pick the kind of answer they want.
6. Claude 2
Developed by Anthropic and released in July 2023, this chatbot can be thought of as a personal AI assistant who can assist with your every informative need. Users have praised Claude for its simple to use interface, clear explanations, and distinctly up-to-date and accusation information.
For example, according to its website, Claude’s latest model scored 76.5% on the famously difficult Bar exam and above the 90th percentile on the GRE reading, writing, and quantitative reasoning exams.
Claude can work through hundreds of pages, even an entire book, to present users with detailed information, summaries, and generated content, highlighting its immense capabilities.
7. Jasper Chat
Jasper Chat is a conversational AI tool able to provide users with information in response to their prompts using pre-trained data. With this data, Jasper can provide anything from text generation to translation (thanks to its ability to understand 29 languages) to simple conversation by using its conversation ‘memory’ to have human-like interactions.
Jasper is available on a free basis although, if users wish to input a substantial amount of text that exceeds its limit, users will need to pay. Like some versions of ChatGPT, Jasper has also only been trained with Google data up to 2021, meaning it may be somewhat limited in its answers.
8. YouChat
As its name suggests, You Chat can hold human-like conversations with users with notable speed and ease. Not only this but, just like other chatbots, YouChat is able to generate content, summarise data, write code, and provide valuable sources in response to user prompts.
Also functioning on LLM technology, users don’t simply type their prompt into a search bar, they use the chat interface to ask a question, giving the platform a uniquely human feel.
9. HuggingChat
HuggingChat is another generative AI tool, already boasting millions of users since its release by AI company Hugging Face.
HuggingChat can also generate a range of text for users, such as producing email drafts, essays, letters, content summaries, and more. According to ZDNet, its standout feature is the chatbot’s ability to debug, write code, and create Excel formulas using LLaMA software.
Another standout feature is the accessibility to HuggingChat, whose self-proclaimed purpose is to democratize AI. Simply go to the chat page and start using it, no log on needed.
10. SpinBot
SpinBot is a little different. This free AI tool does not focus on generating original content in response to prompts. Instead, it can rewrite or paraphrase content submitted to it to give it a fresh perspective, allowing users to explore ways of expressing themselves with ease – ideal for any student in a brain slump.
Is Google Bard Better Than ChatGPT?
Google Bard, or as it is now known Gemini, is often put forward as the primary opposition of ChatGPT. But in this war of the chatbots, ultimately, it’s difficult to say if one comes out better or worse in the ring.
Both of these advanced generative AI technologies employ natural language processing (NLP) to comprehend user inquiries and deliver intelligent responses in return. Both are considered to be accessible, informative and possess increasingly human-like intelligence.
But, ultimately, these chatbots simply offer a different user experience. To determine if ChatGPT or Google Gemini is better, one can come to their own conclusion after comparing their features.
Launched in March 2023 and built on LaMDA, Google’s AI language model software differs from other LLMs used by ChatGPT. Despite having a rocky entrance onto the scene (famously providing inaccurate information about the James Webb Space Telescope), Google’s chatbot quickly developed and garnered increasing popularity.
Today, this bot can assist with everything from writing to coding to numerical problems and, initial inaccuracies aside, it is now praised for its simple and accurate responses. Many have argued that Google managed to develop Bard in a shorter space of time with a greater focus on bringing out various upgrades and extensions that allow you to, for example, pull together your Google apps like Gmail and Google Docs so you can use them all simultaneously.
Unlike other chatbots, Bard was trained in conversational data, arguably allowing it to make more human-like responses, and it is available in over 40 languages whilst ChatGPT is primarily designed to understand and generate text in English.
Nevertheless, with every newly released version, ChatGPT continues to impress the global stage.
While users may need to pay for more advanced ChatGPT models, they offer notably high levels of maturity and intelligence. ChatGPT contains integrated image-processing capabilities enabling the analysis of input images (though Google also offers this) and offers users “Prompt examples” to facilitate more targeted conversations.
Regarding the answers they give, ChatGPT has been criticized for often giving dated information pre-2021, Google has also faced issues by providing users with, albeit up-to-date information, information that has been pulled from the Google internet browser which may not always be correct.
So, ultimately, it’s up to you. Try out bots to see which better suits your needs and find out which bot really comes out on top.