Last Updated on January 11, 2024 by Alex Birkett
ChatGPT is pretty chill.
We can all admit that, right?
Growing fast, too:
This AI text generator is being used to summarize long form content, create content briefs, answer search queries, generate ideas and much more.
But it’s not without its constraints and downsides.
For one, the service is often down. If you’re relying on it for your workflows, this is a huge problem.
It’s also not everyone’s ideal way to interact with generative AI. Other tools have different built-in prompt templates, guardrails, and dimensions that help hone the outputs (for example, for SEO or narrative fiction).
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a large language model created by OpenAI, designed to generate human-like text in response to prompts.
It is a type of artificial intelligence software that uses deep learning algorithms to understand natural language and produce text that is relevant and coherent. ChatGPT is trained on massive amounts of text data and can generate text on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to news, science, history, and entertainment.
It is often used in various applications, such as customer service, personal assistants, and chatbots, to provide more natural and human-like interactions with users.
By the way, I generated that response using….ChatGPT.
Basically, it’s a natural language processing AI writing tool that you can talk to in a conversational form. It ingested a bunch of data that allows it to predict the next logical subsequent word, giving you sometimes excellent and mostly generic answers (…well, it’s all dependent on user input and prompts).
Those use cases are still…controversial. But big things are happening.
Editor’s note: I’m going to use some affiliate links when possible to try to earn some revenue from my content. These don’t change the opinions espoused in the content nor the style in which they are written. If I think a product sucks, I’m not going to say otherwise. This is just a bonus and a way to fund the whole operation. Anyway, enjoy the article!
The 9 Best ChatGPT Alternatives in 2024
- Jasper Chat
- ChatSonic
- Writer
- Character AI
- LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications)
- Socratic by Google
- CoPilot
- YouChat
- Elsa Speak
1. Jasper Chat
Jasper is legit.
They’re my go-to favorite AI writing software for all purposes, especially for long form content and repurposing my blog posts into social media.
As far as the generative AI landscape goes, they’re the big player, and for good reason: the team is filled with superstars and they continue to build and innovate past the competition.
Their Boss Mode plan introduced recipes and a model where the AI assisted you as you write.
They then launched Jasper Art, an AI image generator.
Now, they have Jasper Chat, a chat interface that, in many cases, outperforms ChatGPT when it comes to accuracy.
Like ChatGPT, it’s a conversational interface subject to your prompts, so it’s endlessly customizable.
In my experience, it takes a few attempts at prompt engineering to get good responses (this is true of all AI chatbots):
You can also generate images (Jasper Art produces some of my favorite AI art) using the chat functionality as well as include up to date information from Google search data.
With Jasper Chat, you also have access to the broader platform, which includes ready made templates for SEO, sales, idea generation, AI paraphrasing, and more.
They also just launched Jasper for Business, which includes a brand voice artifact that you can use to make sure the outputs are written in your voice or your company’s voice. The business plan is going to be a game changer for large teams and agencies.
Price: Starts at $49/mo for up to 50,000 words generated.
G2 Score: 4.8/5
2. ChatSonic
ChatSonic is a conversational AI tool built by the team at Writesonic, another big player in the AI copywriting space.
Writesonic, as a platform, is similar to Jasper (albeit with more of a focus on templates than free writing). It has templates for many use cases, including Instagram captions, video scripts, long form blog posts, and Facebook ads.
The chat feature looks, on its surface, just like ChatGPT. It also uses natural language models and the interface is based on natural language input from the user. Here I’ll ask it to write me a song about bacon in the style of Eminem:
Unlike ChatGPT, you can do several cool things including change the personality of the AI, do basic image generation, store memory, and there’s a Google integration to include the latest data from web queries. This ability to include up to date information is a big advantage.
And of course, all outputs are designed to generate human like responses using natural language processing techniques.
Big fan of ChatSonic.
Price: ChatSonic starts free with up to 100 generations per month, and the pricing tiers for paid plans vary quite a bit depending on quality and word count.
G2 Score: 4.8/5
3. Writer
Writer, the AI software built for brand and editorial teams, just launched their own ChatGPT alternative.
The platform itself is feature-rich with various AI writing tools, an AI content generation business focused on teams. These include style guides, snippets, brand terms, reporting and analytics, and CoWrite, their AI writing tool.
All of these features make this AI tool one of the best for brand teams with varied writing tasks across social media platforms, blog post writing, and other formats.
Their AI chatbot, Ask Writer, is similar to the interface of ChatGPT and also uses neural language models.
What’s cool about this one is it can ingest custom links and repurpose or summarize the content for you. It’s my favorite AI chatbot for repurposing my blog posts to social media platforms like LinkedIn.
This one, however, does not include AI image generation.
And you can use this product for free.
Price: The AI chatbot is currently free, but the platform itself starts at $18 per user/month
G2 Score: 4.6/5
4. Character AI
Character AI is one of my favorite tools to use when I’m procrastinating.
I’ll be honest: it’s not as business appropriate or useful as the other ChatGPT alternatives on this list.
But it’s fun AF.
Basically, there are tons of “characters” you can converse with. The AI is trained to speak like figures such as Elon Musk, Giga Chad, and Socrates.
Here’s an example of a conversation with Giga Chad himself:
Super fun tool. Not totally sure what the business or practical use case is. But it’s a good playground to understand how conversational AI interfaces work.
Price: Free
G2 Score: N/A
5. LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications)
Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications) is an AI-driven language model that is used to create AI chatbots.
It became famous in large part due to a Google engineer freaking out because they thought it was sentient.
It is a supervised learning model, which means that human AI trainers have access to model suggestions in order to create responses and train the model.
LaMDA is trained on billions of words from the public internet, similar to ChatGPT’s model.
Some people suggest that LaMDA could be ‘even better’ than ChatGPT, but it’s not open to the public yet, so it’s all speculation.
However, Google did recently announce its own AI chatbot, called Bard, which uses its LaMDA technology as an experimental conversational AI app.
But this fell flat in demonstrations. So we’ll see.
Price: You can try Lamda by signing up for Google’s AI Test Kitchen, but you’ll have to join the waiting list to download the Android app.
G2 Score: N/A
6. Socratic by Google
Socratic by Google is a learning app that uses AI tools to help students understand their school work.
It’s a simple app that students can use to ask questions conversationally or with images, and it provides visual explanations of concepts in each subject, from math to science and more.
With Socratic, you can ask questions and get answers from teachers and other experts.
It’s available on both Android and iOS devices, so you can get unstuck wherever you are.
This is something I wish was available when I was in school. Honestly, I wish a lot of this stuff was available when I was in school, ChatGPT included. Imagine having AI models that can explain concepts to you simply, suggest ideas for you to get started writing essays, or improve the content you’ve already written.
This is a simple app without the advanced features of the ChatGPT alternatives above, but if you’re looking for AI chatbots to help you or someone you know with schoolwork, this one is a game changer.
Price: Free
G2 Score: 4.5/5
7. CoPilot
CoPilot by GitHub is much different than the rest of the ChatGPT alternatives on this list. While ChatGPT itself can write code, this product is built specifically to write code alongside you.
It’s also built on OpenAI software (in this case, OpenAI Codex), and it suggests code and builds entire functions for you in real-time from your editor.
This one also uses language models to take user input (conversational) and turn it into usable code.
I used to write a lot of code, but that was before the CoPilot days. You used to have to Google really specific stuff to get answers on StackOverflow, and this product just speeds up that experience.
I’ve heard mixed reviews from engineers, however. Some love it, some aren’t impressed. Your mileage may vary.
Price: $10 per month per user
G2 Score: 4.6/5
8. YouChat
YouChat, built by you.com, is an AI powered search engine primarily.
They’ve recently launched a conversational AI chatbot just like ChatGPT or Bing AI. It allows you to talk with the AI and get quick answers to search queries.
It’s in beta, but it’s completely free and worth a try. Again, I express my skepticism as I did above with quick answers generated by AI (at least at this point in time).
But if you’re doing quick research, say for a long form blog post, it can point you in the right direction much faster than if you were only relying on Google search results.
You.com also includes other tools like YouWrite to improve your writing skills.
Price: Free
G2 Score: N/A
9. Elsa Speak
Finally, we have Elsa Speak.
Elsa (English Language Speech Assistant) Speak is a really cool app that helps coach you in English speaking.
I imagine a world where AI chatbots are incredibly useful in language learning and translation. Imagine Duolingo with this capability for all their languages!
For now, Elsa is specially designed to help you improve your English pronunciation.
This is powerful, as it goes beyond basic grammar and syntax. Anyone who has learned a language knows that speaking, pronunciation, and listening are often the most difficult skills to learn.
ELSA’s artificial intelligence technology was developed using voice data of people speaking English with various accents. With voice commands and conversational responses, it helps you fine tune your English skills.
Price: $11.99/month
G2 Score: 4.5/5
Conclusion
ChatGPT is the tip of the iceberg.
Soon we’ll have fine tuned AI tools to help us analyze data, automate processes, build competitive sales strategies, and pretty much everything else that takes up manual time and tedious labor.
At their current stage, they’re not replacing any core functionality, including search. But who knows what the future brings?
Hopefully this list of ChatGPT alternatives sends you down the illustrious rabbit hole of neural language models and AI software.