October 11, 2023

7 ChatGPT Alternatives To Try in 2023 | Free & Paid

Over the past few months, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. 

According to Reuters, they’re estimated to have over 100 million monthly active users. 🤯

But, rather than being the end-all-be-all of chatbot solutions, businesses everywhere are treating it more like their first stepping stone to incorporating AI technology. 

In other words, if you’re searching for an AI-powered chatbot, you’ve got options

Just like you’d never want to live in a world with one flavor of ice cream, there are plenty of ChatGPT alternatives worth exploring. 

So, in today’s post, we’re going to introduce you to the following platforms: 

  • Chat by Copy.ai
  • Chatsonic
  • Jasper Chat
  • Microsoft’s AI Bing
  • Google’s Bard 
  • YouChat
  • Poe by Quora

Before diving into these chat tools, though, let’s get clear on what ChatGPT is and learn a bit more about how it works. 

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered interactive chatbot built by OpenAI. It gives users access to different language models to generate text with, the most notable model being GPT-4. 

The chat software is designed to understand and generate human-like text, making it a helpful and multi-faceted tool for businesses to complete tasks like: 

  • Writing
  • Rewriting
  • Researching
  • Generating ideas

That said, even when using GPT-4 as your language learning model, there are several drawbacks you should be aware of. 

But more on those in a moment. 

First, let’s look at how ChatGPT works and what makes it such a helpful platform for businesses. 

How does ChatGPT work? 

ChatGPT uses a deep learning approach known as a transformer architecture. This allows it to understand and create human-like text, based on its input.

Here’s the basic process through which ChatGPT understands and produces language: 

GPT text to numbers

Step 1: Text to numbers

Computers don't understand language, they understand numbers.

That's where tokens and token IDs come into play. If you use Open.ai's tokenizer tool, you'll be able to see this first hand.

ChatGPT takes words and assigns a numerical value to them, making it easier for the language processing model to understand the statistical relationships between these tokens, and making informed suggestions as to what the next tokens/words should be (like autocomplete in Google Docs).

Let's look at how words are turned into tokens and token IDs in the phrase "I like dogs and cats."

text to numbers with open.ai's tokeniers
Text broken out into tokens
text to numbers with open.ai's tokenizer—to token IDs
Text broken out into Token IDs

Tokens with GPT-3 vs. GPT-4

As you explore potential ChatGPT alternatives, something to consider is the token limit when it comes to products operating on GPT-3 vs. GPT-4.

The input and output total of tokens drastically changes when you work on GPT-4.

GPT-3 has a maximum input + output total of 4,097 tokens. That means you can summarize the US Declaration of Independence as it makes up 1,695 tokens. This is great for outbound emails, short-form blog posts, and summarizing articles.

GPT-4 has a maximum input + output total of 32,000 tokens. That means that you can input an hour-long webinar transcript and use GPT-4 to summarize it, as well as turn it into a blog post.

GPT-3 will solve most problems, but know that if you ever run into token limit problems, GPT-4 is a great resource.

Step 2: Model prediction

The impressive part of OpenAI and what we'll call their secret sauce is that they were able to train a model with over 175 billion parameters, making it the largest transformer-based language model in the world. That is, until they released GPT-4.

There are many different stages that go into model predictions, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll focus on what we believe are the two very important ones to know in the context of using generative AI software.

Embedding

OpenAI's text embeddings give words a better math representation. Remember, computers don't understand language, they understand numbers.

For example, let's say you want a strawberry-banana smoothie. Embedding would break a smoothie down into:

  • 1 Cup of yogurt
  • 1 Whole banana
  • 15 strawberries
  • 1/2 Cup of ice

When all of these are summed together, you'll get the embedding of a strawberry-banana smoothie.

What embedding looks like if you were making a smoothie

Now, when you want to compare a mango smoothie recipe with your friend, you can see how similar they are based on their ingredients. Embeddings would allow you to group smoothies by their type, like sweet, fruity, health conscious, etc.

tl;dr: Embedding breaks down big vague things into smaller, more specific things.

Attention

Attention was studied and developed at Google and focuses on which words are most important to understanding the meaning of a sentence. Basically, the words you pay attention to when having a conversation.

For example, let's look at two different sentences with the word blue.

1. "I'm feeling blue"

GPT would pay attention to the words 'feeling' and 'blue'. It would understand that those two words work together to convey sad emotions.

2. "The sky is blue"

GPT would pay attention to the words 'sky' and 'blue' this time, giving them a different meaning than in the first example.

visual representation of how Attention works within ChatGPT

⭐️ Embedding and Attention are two important stages, but there are more to learn about over time, all of which use the 175 billion parameters to complete the model end-to-end.

Step 3: Decoding

After the model performs a prediction, we now need to translate the machine language back into human words. This is the final step. The model reverses the token IDs and decodes them into words that we can read and understand.

process of decoding with generative AI

And that's where the fun begins. After running billions of calculations in a fraction of a second, we can start to do things like:

  • Writing blog posts
  • Summarizing articles
  • Automating outbound email campaigns
  • Creating Voice of Customer documents based on call transcripts

... And so much more! The opportunities are endless and we're not even scratching the surface.

ChatGPT is not the same thing as GPT-4 

ChatGPT is simply a conversational layer added on top of GPT-4. 

GPT-4 is the engine driving ChatGPT.

This is an important distinction to make because other generative AI chatbots, like Chat by Copy.ai, use GPT-4 and are just as powerful. In other words, you have options.

Like any other software category, all of the software options around will have table stake features and use cases, some will just be better at specific ones. Some of the ways you can use this software include:

  • Content creation: Draft articles, blog posts, or social media updates in seconds.
  • Virtual assistants: Answer questions, provide support, and improve your workflows by automating various tasks.
  • Language translation: Translate text between different languages to take your marketing strategy abroad, create multilingual websites, etc. 
  • Creative writing: Get easy inspiration and bust through writer's block when working on text-based assets.

These are just a few examples of how tools like ChatGPT can be used, but the potential goes way beyond these applications.

7 ChatGPT alternatives to explore in 2023

We’re going to look at seven ChatGPT alternatives that you can start experimenting with today. 

Plus, we asked each tool directly what makes it a good ChatGPT alternative and didn’t edit the results. This should give you a quick glance at the quality of each software’s output. 

Let’s dive in!

chat by copy.ai

1. Chat by Copy.ai

Chat by Copy.ai is a powerful AI-powered writing tool that offers a range of features, making it the best ChatGPT alternative for a variety of use cases.

For sales teams 

Chat by Copy.ai is a better platform than ChatGPT for sales teams because it has the ability to scrape website data. This allows you to create more personalized outreach copy based on a user's public LinkedIn URL.

This copy can be used for contacting cold or warm leads, like: 

  • LinkedIn InMail 
  • Cold email outreach
  • Post-demo follow-ups 
  • SMS messages 
  • Call scripts

With Chat by Copy.ai, your sales team can scale outreach with more personalized messaging. That way, you can begin more meaningful conversations with leads and grow your business in less time.

For marketing teams 

Chat by Copy.ai lets you generate both long-form content and short-form copy at the click of a button. 

Let’s quickly take a look at how our software helps with each. 

Long-form blog posts

Chat by Copy.ai can help you write informative and engaging long-form content. 

You can use pre-built prompts to assist you at every step along the way, from:

  • Generating article ideas 
  • Creating an outline 
  • Building a content brief (if you outsource your writing) 
  • Writing your first draft

And since Chat by Copy.ai is plugged into today’s internet, you’ll have fresh external links built into the draft itself. 

With some polishing, you’ll create SEO-friendly blog posts, thought leadership articles, massive eBooks, and much more in a fraction of the time it currently takes. 

For copywriting

Chat by Copy.ai is an excellent tool for generating copy that gets you higher conversions. 

Since our software gives you multiple variations of a piece of copy, you’ll have plenty of options to test for: 

  • PPC campaigns 
  • Email subject lines 
  • Email copy 
  • Newsletter signup forms 
  • Tweet storms 
  • Landing page copy
  • Social media posts

Or any other type of short-form copy you need to attract and convert your audience. 

Simply use Copy.ai’s custom prompts to start generating ideas in seconds. Then A/B test your way to success by trying out different pieces of copy on your audience. 

Pricing

Chat by Copy.ai has simple pricing at $49/month for unlimited access.

Sign up and test out Chat by Copy.ai today! 

Is Chat by Copy.ai the best ChatGPT alternative? 

We asked our Chat software if Copy.ai is the best ChatGPT alternative. 

Here’s what it had to say: 

"Chat by Copy.ai is an AI-powered chatbot that generates human-like responses to user inputs. It uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand the user's inputs and provide relevant responses. It is designed to help businesses automate customer support, lead generation, and other tasks that require human-like interactions.

On the other hand, ChatGPT is an open-source AI language model developed by OpenAI. It is trained on a massive dataset of text and can generate human-like responses to a wide range of prompts. ChatGPT is used for a variety of applications, including chatbots, content generation, and language translation.

Both Chat by Copy.ai and ChatGPT have their strengths and weaknesses, and the choice between them depends on your specific needs. Chat by Copy.ai is more focused on chatbot applications and has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to use. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is more flexible and can be used for a wide range of applications.

In summary, both Chat by Copy.ai and ChatGPT are excellent AI language models, and the choice between them depends on your specific needs and use case."
Chat by Copy.ai the best ChatGPT alternative?

Verdict: Overall, we’re happy with the response as it’s accurate and honest. It’s also clear we haven’t trained Copy.ai for shameless self-promotion—which is always good. 😊 

One small thing we’d like to fix: Chat by Copy.ai currently runs on GPT-4

It’s a brand-new development, as GPT-4 was only recently released, and our team couldn’t be more excited to share it with our users.

chatsonic

2. Chatsonic

Chatsonic by Writesonic is an AI-powered chat assistant designed to help writers and content creators improve their productivity and streamline their writing process. 

This software relies on GPT-4 and can do everything you’d expect from a chatbot, such as answering search queries, rephrasing sentences, or generating entire paragraphs in response to prompts. 

Pricing

You need a paid plan to access GPT-4. Pricing starts at $19/month, but your word count will depend on the plan you go with: Premium (60k words), Superior (30k words), or Ultra (15k words). 

The difference between these words will affect the quality of your prompt’s output. Premium plans give you the lowest quality output, and Ultra plans give you the highest. 

Is Chatsonic a good ChatGPT alternative? 

Here’s the response Chatsonic gave when we asked what makes it the best ChatGPT alternative: 

“ChatSonic is a good ChatGPT alternative because it is designed specifically for content creation and writing assistance. Unlike ChatGPT, which is a general-purpose language model, ChatSonic focuses on providing accurate and high-quality content that meets the specific needs of the user. ChatSonic has been trained on a large corpus of writing samples, which enables it to generate original and plagiarism-free content on a wide range of topics. Additionally, ChatSonic is user-friendly and easy to use, making it an ideal tool for writers, bloggers, and content marketers looking to improve their writing skills and productivity.”
chatsonic results when asked "is chatsonic the best ChatGPT alternative?

Verdict: Chatsonic functions much like ChatGPT, and nothing in particular about the responses sets the platform apart. 

Jasper ai

3. Jasper

Jasper's chatbot is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps users generate ideas, refine content, and maintain quality. 

The software is designed to help users with various writing tasks, including creating blog posts, summarizing transcripts, writing Facebook ad copy, explaining complex concepts, and more.

Pricing 

Jasper starts at $29/month for 20,000 words on the Starter plan. If you want access to their automated workflows, you’ll need a Boss Mode plan which begins at $59/month for $50,000 words. 

This makes it one of this list's more expensive/limiting tools (in terms of word count for text generation). 

Is Jasper Chat a good ChatGPT alternative? 

We asked Jasper Chat what makes it a good ChatGPT alternative.

Here’s the response:

“Jasper Chat is a good ChatGPT alternative because it is an AI-powered writing assistant that can help users generate creative and engaging content. Some of the key features that make Jasper Chat a good alternative include:”

1. Customizability: Users can choose the type of content they want Jasper to generate, such as social media posts, blog articles, or short stories.

2. Speed and Efficiency: Jasper Chat can produce high-quality content quickly and efficiently, saving users time and effort.

3. User-focused Interface: Jasper Chat's interface is user-friendly, making it easy for users to communicate their needs and preferences.

4. Markdown Formatting: Jasper Chat's output is formatted in Markdown, making it easy for users to copy and paste the content into their projects or websites.

5. Limited actions: Jasper Chat's actions are limited to the chatbox, which means that it cannot execute physical tasks such as sending an email or contacting a person.

Overall, Jasper Chat is a powerful writing assistant that offers many of the same benefits as ChatGPT, making it a good alternative for those looking for an AI-powered writing assistant.
jasper results when asked "is jasper the best ChatGPT alternative?

Verdict: The responses were vague and didn’t highlight any strengths of Jasper Chat over ChatGPT. In fact, the first four points are all true of ChatGPT, too.

Plus, by point five, the response switched gears and looked at the drawbacks of using Jasper Chat. 

Overall, it’s a powerful tool but not one that stands out over the others in any distinctive way. 

Microsoft's AI-powered bing

4. Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing

Microsoft's AI-powered Bing search engine is designed to provide users with the most relevant and accurate search results possible.It’s a change from how most people are used to searching the web.

Common way: Type something into Google and get a static list of results.

The new Bing way: Bing tries to understand user intent and deliver genuinely personalized results based on a person’s preferences and search behavior. 

That said, many users think this is Microsoft’s version of ChatGPT. 

Instead, Bing draws from ChatGPT and would be more suitable as a research tool than it would be for generating original content. 

Pricing

Bing is free and doesn’t require a subscription or payment plan. 

Is Microsoft’s Bing a better ChatGPT alternative? 

We asked Microsoft Bing what makes it the best ChatGPT alternative. 

Here’s what it responded:

“Microsoft's Bing search engine is driven by OpenAI technology, which is more powerful than ChatGPT according to Microsoft. In a test conducted by Business Insider, Bing had an edge on questions around general knowledge, budgeting, and planning, while ChatGPT was better at quick summaries. Bing Chat is the AI bot for you if you're looking for a ChatGPT alternative that's the most similar to it. This AI-powered version of the company's search engine runs on the same framework as ChatGPT, so its answers and abilities should be pretty similar to those of its virtual cousin. Microsoft Bing AI is also super powerful as it is based on the OpenAI large language model, which is much better than ChatGPT.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.”
Microsoft's Bing results when asked "What makes Microsoft's Bing the best ChatGPT alternative?"

Verdict: We like that the responses had citations, but the answer sends a mixed message: is it better than ChatGPT or not?

The answer is that Microsoft’s Bing is foundationally built with the same technology as ChatGPT and gives similar output. With that in mind, this is a tool used for research more than for content creation. 

Bard AI

5. Bard AI (Google) 

Bard AI is a chatbot software that would be best considered an alternative to Microsoft’s Bing than ChatGPT. By that, we mean that it’s attempting to add a chatbot to the traditional search experience. 

Bard is supposedly good for researching topics but has already made a few large blunders that caught mass attention

However, it can be tempting to misjudge technology based on a single demo, regardless of how bad that demo was. And if we know anything about Google, they have the motivation, resources, and talent to progress Bard AI quickly. 

Pricing 

Bard AI was just released and is now open for experimentation with people on the waitlist. To join that waitlist, click here.

Is Bard a good ChatGPT alternative?

Our team is on the waitlist, though early responses aren’t as impressive as we hoped. 

One user shared their experience on Twitter:

tweet about Bard being unable to write a function that adds two numbers.

This is surprising as most chatbots can provide coding assistance. 

For example, we asked Chat by Copy.ai to do the same thing and had the following produced in seconds:

writing a function that takes two numbers as arguments and adds them together with copy.ai

Verdict: Time will tell, but currently other chatbot tools are easier to use and aren’t making global mistakes worth $100 billion

Plus, other platforms are available right now, so you don’t need to join a waitlist to get started. 

youchat

6. YouChat

YouChat is an AI-powered chatbot (not to be confused with the mobile messaging app).

This tool wouldn’t be suited for creating original content but can be a helpful research assistant. It’s similar to searching on Google or, more accurately now, Bing. With AI, YouChat is able to generate responses for searches that involve:: 

  • Text
  • Images
  • Videos
  • News
  • Maps
  • Social
  • And more

Right now, YouChat would be worth experimenting with if you’re looking for a chatbot to help with research.

Pricing

YouChat is free. 

Is YouChat a good ChatGPT alternative?

We asked YouChat, “What makes YouChat the best ChatGPT alternative?” 

Here is what it said:

“There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer to the question of whether YouChat is powered by GPT-4, but it is worth noting that OpenAI has not yet publicly released GPT-4, and it is not clear whether it is even in development yet. However, YouChat is similar to other GPT-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, and it is built into the You.com search engine. Some possible reasons why YouChat is considered a good ChatGPT alternative include:

- It is free to use and does not require an account.
- It has an updated information bank that can provide more relevant and accurate responses.
- It is integrated with the You.com search engine, which can provide more context and information for its responses.
- It uses a large language model that can generate human-like text and provide more accurate and informative responses to user queries.

Overall, while it is not clear whether YouChat is powered by GPT-4, it appears to be a capable chatbot tool that can provide reliable and helpful responses to user queries.”
youchat results when asked "is youchat the best ChatGPT alternative?

Verdict: YouChat seems to have misunderstood the question by incorporating and focusing more on GPT-4 than was asked.

At least for this question, the output wasn’t helpful. 

poe by quora

7. Poe by Quora

Poe is a new AI chatbot app launched by Quora that allows users to ask questions and receive instant answers from a range of AI-supported chatbots, including ChatGPT, OpenAI, and Anthropic. 

It’s like ChatGPT in many ways, though it’s currently limited when generating text with advanced language models like GPT-4 or Claude+. 

Pricing

Currently, Poe is free with most language models but limited with the ones you’d want. 

You can generate one message with GPT-4 and Claude+ per day. Their team is working on a subscription plan allowing users to increase this limit.

Is Poe the best ChatGPT alternative?

We asked Poe, “Is Poe the best ChatGPT alternative?” 

Here’s how it responded:

“As an AI language model, the Poe assistant is designed to provide accurate and informative responses to a wide range of questions. Here are some of the reasons why Poe could be considered the best ChatGPT alternative:

1. Accuracy
: Poe uses state-of-the-art natural language processing technology to understand the meaning of questions and provide accurate answers.

2.
Versatility: Poe can answer a wide range of questions on diverse topics, including science, technology, history, culture, and more.

3. Speed
: Poe responds quickly to questions, making it an efficient tool for getting information.

4. Clarity
: Poe's responses are easy to read and understand, thanks to the use of CommonMark Markdown formatting.

5. Availability
: Poe is available 24/7, making it a convenient resource for users.

Overall, Poe's combination of accuracy, versatility, speed, clarity, and availability makes it a strong alternative to ChatGPT for those seeking an AI language model to assist them in finding information.”
Poe by quora results when asked "is Poe the best ChatGPT alternative?

Verdict: Like many of the responses in this article, this one is generic. The only real point is the last one, Availability

One of the most significant drawbacks to ChatGPT has been the constant downtimes users experience. On that account, Poe’s answer was correct. Otherwise, it feels like a more limited version of other platforms on this list.  

What is the best ChatGPT alternative for sales and marketing?

Chat by Copy.ai is the best ChatGPT alternative.

While many tools on this list function similarly to ChatGPT, Chat by Copy.ai is one of the few that provides recent citations. This makes it the perfect research assistant and a great tool for adding external links to your blog posts. 

Plus, Chat by Copy.ai comes with built-in prompts that make generating your text-based assets easy

This makes it the best tool to help you overcome your execution barriers. 

But what makes Chat by Copy.ai stand apart is that it can scrape websites. This opens up so many use cases, such as:

  • Writing personalized cold emails from a LinkedIn URL 
  • Identifying the value prop of a website
  • Summarize LinkedIn profiles and YouTube videos into bullet points
  • And much more

Once you get started with Chat by Copy.ai, you’re plugged directly into today’s internet. 

Plus, with a forever-free plan, you can try our Chat software at zero risk. Click here to start using Chat by Copy.ai today!

FAQ

1. Are there other platforms like ChatGPT on the market?

Yes, other chatbot platforms on the market use natural language processing and machine learning to assist users with various tasks. The most popular ChatGPT alternatives include Chat by Copy.ai, Chatsonic, and Jasper. 

2. Do those other platforms use GPT-4?

Yes, other tools like Chat by Copy.ai use GPT-4 to generate responses. This makes some alternatives just as powerful as ChatGPT. 

3. How can I access ChatGPT?

You can access ChatGPT by visiting the ChatGPT website and starting a conversation with the chatbot. You can also learn more about ChatGPT prompts here.

4. Who owns ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI, a research organization focusing on safely and beneficially developing artificial intelligence. 

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by a group of technology leaders, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman. The organization's mission is to develop and promote friendly AI for the betterment of humanity.

5. Are ChatGPT and GPT-4 the same thing?

While ChatGPT and GPT-4 are related, they are not the same thing. ChatGPT is a chatbot platform that uses the GPT-4 language model to generate responses to user inputs. 

GPT-4, on the other hand, is a language model that can be used for a variety of applications beyond chatbots, such as language translation, data analysis, text completion, and more.

It’s best to think of GPT-4 as the engine that powers ChatGPT. And that same engine is used by other tools to generate similar responses. 

6. What are the best ChatGPT alternatives?

Depending on the user's needs, several chatbot platforms can be considered as alternatives to ChatGPT. 

One popular alternative is Chat by Copy.ai which can scrape the web and provide you with the most current information. Plus, it has a free plan, so you can get started at zero risk. 

Make yourself feel superhuman by trying Chat by Copy.ai.

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