Generative AI chatbots are a major step forward in conversational AI. These chatbots are powered by large language models (LLMs) that can generate human-quality text, translate languages, write creative content, and provide informative answers to your questions.
An ever-growing number of generative AI chatbots is now entering the market, but not all chatbots are created equal. We analyzed the best generative AI chatbots to help you determine the best conversational AI app for your business.
Here are our picks for the top generative AI chatbot software. Jump to:
- Top generative AI chatbot software comparison chart
- Bing Chat Enterprise: Best for organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem
- ChatGPT: Best for versatility and advanced generative AI features
- OpenAI Playground: Best for customizability
- Perplexity AI: Best for finding information on the Internet
- YouChat: Best for students and researchers
- Chatsonic: Best for individuals in the creative industries
- Google Bard: Best for brainstorming ideas
- Socrates.ai: Best for internal knowledge-base management
- HuggingChat: Best for developers
- Jasper: Best for marketing and sales team
- Key features of generative AI chatbot software
- How do I choose the best generative AI chatbot software for my business?
- How we evaluated the best generative AI software
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Bottom Line: Best AI Chatbots
Top Generative AI Chatbot Software: Comparison Chart
We compared the key features of the top generative AI chatbot software to help you determine the best option for your company:
Best for | Query limit | Language model(s) | Chrome extension created by vendor | Starting price | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bing Chat Enterprise | Organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem | 30 response per conversation | GPT 4 | No | $5 per month |
ChatGPT | Versatility and advanced chat generative AI features | 50 messages every three hours for GPT-4 model | GPT 3.5, GPT 4 | No | $20 per month |
OpenAI Playground | Customizability | 200 request per day for free users | GPT 3.5, GPT 4 | No | $0.0015 per 1K tokens |
Perplexity AI | Finding information on the internet | 5 copilot searches every four hours for free users | GPT 3.5, Claude-2, GPT 4, | Yes | $20 per month |
YouChat | Students and researchers | Unlimited | GPT 3, GPT 4 | Yes | $6.99 per month |
Chatsonic | Individuals in the creative industries | Word limit depends on the plan | GPT 3.5, GPT 4 | Yes | $20 per month |
Google Bard | Brainstorming ideas | Unlimited exchanges per conversation | Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2) | No | Free |
Socrates.ai | Internal knowledge-base management | Unlimited | N/A | No | Available upon request. |
HuggingChat | Developers | Unlimited | Llama 2 | No | $9 per month |
Jasper | Marketing and sales team | Word limit depends on the plan | GPT 3.5, GPT 4 | Yes | $49 per month |
Please note: All ratings are based on a range of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best option.
Bing Chat Enterprise: Best chatbot for organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem
Overall rating: 3.13
- Cost: 3.95
- Feature Set: 3.5
- Ease of Use: 1.75
- Quality of Output: 2.5
- Support: 4
Microsoft generative AI tool Bing Chat Enterprise uses GPT- 4 – a large language model – to generate natural language responses to users’ queries. Bing Chat Enterprise has three conversation styles: Creative, balanced and precise. These styles help users set the tone for the expected response to their query. Bing Chat Enterprise is available in 160 regions; significantly, users can also access it via the Windows Copilot Sidebar, making this app easily accessible.
Pricing
Bing AI chat is available at no additional cost for customers who are licensed for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, Business Premium, or A3 or A5 for faculty. If you don’t have those licenses, you can purchase Bing AI as a standalone tool for $5 monthly.
Features
- A versatile mix of conversation styles for different enterprise AI use cases.
- Bing’s citation capability allows you to fact-check its output.
- It allows users to upload an image and it can also generate an image for you.
Pros
- Bing’s citation can enable you to continue your research on your own.
- The user interface is visually appealing and easy to navigate.
- It has an AI built-in image generator.
Cons
- While trying the tool on a browser other than Edge, I got an error message: “You’ve reached the conversation limit for today. Sign in to continue your chat.” I found that other users experience this too, even though they are signed in or haven’t used the tool before. To resolve this issue, I downloaded Microsoft Edge.
- Limited to 30 responses per conversation.
Also see: Top Generative AI Apps and Tools
ChatGPT: Best chatbot for versatility and advanced generative AI features
Overall rating: 4.51
- Cost: 4.15
- Feature Set: 4.4
- Ease of Use: 5
- Quality of Output: 3.75
- Support: 5
Developed by OpenAI as part of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series of models, ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool designed to engage in human-quality conversations with users. The platform can perform NLP tasks, such as answering questions, providing recommendations, summarizing text, and translating languages. Aside from content generation, developers can also use ChatGPT to assist with coding tasks, including code generation, debugging help, and answering programming-related questions.
Pricing
- Free: You can use the free plan at no cost.
- ChatGPT Plus: $20 per month.
- Enterprise plan: Custom quotes.
Features
- Analytics dashboard to understand usage for enterprise users.
- Multilingual features: It can understand and generate text in multiple languages.
- Contextual understanding of extended conversation.
Pros
- Data encryption at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.2+).
- ChatGPT can assist in completing sentences or paragraphs for users.
- Explain complex concepts.
Cons
- The free plan is limited to GPT-3.5.
- Platform knowledge is limited to 2021.
- Biases and inaccurate information.
For more information: Full ChatGPT review.
OpenAI Playground: Best chatbot for customizability
Overall rating: 3.0
- Cost: 4.15
- Feature Set: 5
- Ease of Use: 0.55
- Quality of Output: 2.5
- Support: 2
OpenAI Playground was designed by the same generative AI company that created ChatGPT. It is a web-based environment allowing users to experiment with different OpenAI models, including GPT-4, GPT-3.5 Turbo, and others. OpenAI Playground is suitable for advanced users looking for a customizable generative AI chatbot model that they can easily fine-tune to suit their needs.
Pricing
OpenAI Playground is priced per 1,000 tokens (1,000 tokens equals to 750 words). Pricing for this tool varies based on your chosen model. New users can get $5 in free credit to use for their first three months.
GPT-4 models
- 8K context: Input costs $0.03 per 1K tokens while output costs $0.06 per 1K tokens.
- 32K context: Input costs $0.06 per 1K tokens while output costs $0.12 per 1K tokens.
GPT-3.5 Turbo
- 4K context: Input costs $0.0015 per 1K tokens, while output costs $0.002 per 1K tokens.
- 16K context: Input costs $0.003 per 1K tokens, while output costs $0.004 per 1K tokens.
Features
- Text and completion summarization capability.
- Multiple options for model selection.
- Language translation capability.
- Sentiment analysis.
Pros
- Available on the web and app for Android and iOS devices.
- Highly customizable.
Cons
- Limited creativity.
- Privacy concerns.
Also see: The Benefits of Generative AI
Perplexity AI: Best chatbot for finding information on the Internet
Overall rating: 4.19
- Cost: 4.15
- Feature Set: 4.4
- Ease of Use: 5
- Quality of Output: 5
- Support: 2
Perplexity AI is a generative AI chatbot/search/answer engine that allows users to express queries in natural language and provides answers based on information gathered from various sources on the web. When you ask a question on Perplexity AI, it provides the answer to your query and suggests related follow-up questions; you can either select from the suggested related questions or type yours in the text field.
Perplexity AI’s Copilot feature can guide users through the search process with interactive follow-up questions, multiple searches, and summarized results – this capability is helpful when researching complex topics. However, it’s limited to five searches every four hours for free plan users and up to 300 searches for paid users.
Pricing
- Free: Available at no cost with limited features.
- Pro: It costs $20 per month or $200 per year.
Features
- Support Claude-2 and GPT-4.
- Support 30 languages, including English, Bengali, Danish and more.
- Text and PDF file upload capability.
Pros
- Cites information sources.
- Mobile app for iOS and Android device users.
Cons
- File upload is limited to three per day for free users.
- Customer support can be improved.
YouChat: Best chatbot for students and researchers
Overall rating: 3.64
- Cost: 5
- Feature Set: 2.9
- Ease of Use: 5
- Quality of Output: 3.75
- Support: 1
Designed by You.com, YouChat is an AI-powered generative chatbot that can summarize text, write code, suggest ideas, compose emails and answer general questions based on information available on the web. It also cites its information source, making it easy to fact-check the chatbot’s answers to your queries. YouChat combines various elements in its search results, including images, videos, news, maps, social, code, and search engine results on the subject.
Pricing
- Free: Available at no cost for up to 10 AI writing generations.
- YouPro: $9.99 per month.
- YouPro for Education: $6.99 per month.
Features
- Code generator.
- Multimodal search capability.
- Supports social media profiles.
Pros
- Chrome extension available.
- It provides interactive search results with various elements.
Cons
- Contextual understanding can be improved.
- It sometimes displays outdated links or information.
Also see: Generative AI Examples
Chatsonic: Best chatbot for individuals in the creative industries
Overall rating: 4.03
- Cost: 4.55
- Feature Set: 4.4
- Ease of Use: 5
- Quality of Output: 2.5
- Support: 2
Trained and powered by Google Search to converse with users based on current events. Chatsonic advertises itself as a ChatGPT alternative. The AI chatbot is a product of Writesonic, an AI platform for content creation. When using Chatsonic, you can toggle on the “Include latest Google data” button to add real-time trending information.
Chatsonic has a Generate AI Art feature that enables it to generate digital AI artwork for users’ consumption. It also has a personality functionality that allows users to select from a list of personalities such as interviewer, math teacher, motivational coach, English translator and more – this allows the tool to provide tailored responses based on their chosen persona.
Pricing
- Free trial: Up to 10,000 words per month.
- Unlimited: $20 per month when billed monthly or $16 per month when billed yearly – limited to one user.
- Business: $19 per month when billed month or $12.67 per month when billed annually – for up to 200,000 words for GPT 3.5 or 33,3333 words for GPT 4.0 – limited to one user. With this plan, you can increase your word count and number of users at an additional cost.
- Enterprise: Custom quote.
Features
- It has a Sonic Editor (Google Docs-like editor).
- Integration with third-party apps.
- Offers over 100 AI templates.
Pros
- Support about 25 languages.
- Landing page generator capability.
- Browser extension available.
Cons
- Priority support is limited to business and enterprise plan users.
- Free plan lacks email support.
On a related topic: What is Generative AI?
Google Bard: Best chatbot for brainstorming ideas
Overall rating: 4.28
- Cost: 5
- Feature Set: 5
- Ease of Use: 4.5
- Quality of Output: 5
- Support: 1
Google Bard is an AI-powered LLM chatbot built on the PaLM2 (Pathways Language Model, version 2) AI model. You can export your Google Bard conversation to Google Docs or Draft in Gmail – the platform also allows you to create a shareable public link you can send to a third party. Google Bard is still relatively new and is being actively developed.
Pricing
Google Bard is free to use.
Features
- Ability to export conversation.
- Its “Google it” function directs you to a search engine, providing more information on your query.
- It can generate code in at least 20 programming languages.
Pros
- It has a vast knowledge base.
- Cites sources of information.
Cons
- Users reported that Google Bard is slow to respond, especially when users ask complex questions.
- It sometimes has been known to give inaccurate or incomplete information.
Also see: ChatGPT vs. Google Bard: Generative AI Comparison
Socrates.ai: Best chatbot for internal knowledge-base management
Overall rating: 2.1
- Cost: 0 [no information available]
- Feature Set: 3
- Ease of Use: 3
- Quality of Output: 2.5
- Support: 2
Socrates.ai is an artificial intelligence platform that provides businesses with conversational AI solutions. It enables companies to create and deploy conversational agents that can interact with users naturally. It can be integrated into various channels such as websites, mobile apps, and messaging platforms to enhance user experience and support automation.
Pricing
Available upon request.
Features
- Integration with third-party enterprise apps.
- It has a database of about 1000 of employee questions.
- Supports natural language processing and understanding.
- Bot-to-bot conversations.
Pros
- Flexible deployment – SaaS or On-Premise.
- It offers a pre-built and pre-tested content that includes a glossary of terms, abbreviations, and acronyms that can be customized for your company.
Cons
- Lacks transparent pricing.
- Support can be improved.
Also see: Generative AI Companies: Top 12 Leaders
HuggingChat: Best chatbot for developers
Overall rating: 3.33
- Cost: 5
- Feature Set: 2.9
- Ease of Use: 4.75
- Quality of Output: 1.25
- Support: 1
Developed by Hugging Face, HuggingChat is a chatbot based on the Open Assistant Conversational AI Model. It uses NLP and ML algorithms to interact with users and can generate answers to questions, write essays, write code, translate text, and construct emails. The platform has been trained on a large dataset of diverse conversations and can learn from new interactions.
Pricing
HuggingChat is free to use. You can also subscribe to the pro plan at $9 per month to get early access to new features. They also offer an enterprise hub plan at $20 per user per month.
Features
- It has a web search functionality that complements its response with web content.
- Multilingual support.
- It can debug and write code and create Excel formulas.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Highly customizable – the Hugging Face platform allows developers to create their custom intents, entities, and actions.
Cons
- Knowledge-base not up to date.
- The platform sometimes gives an incomplete answer.
Also see: Generative AI Startups
Jasper: Best chatbot for marketing and sales team
Overall rating: 4.23
- Cost: 2.65
- Feature Set: 5
- Ease of Use: 5
- Quality of Output: 5
- Support: 3
Jasper generative AI chatbot can be trained on your brand voice to interact with your customer in a personalized manner. Jasper partners with OpenAI and uses GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 language models and their proprietary AI engine. The company also sources from other models such as Neo X, T5, and Bloom. One of Jasper’s strong points is its brand voice functionality, which allows teams and organizations to create on-brand content.
Pricing
- Creator: It costs $49 per month when billed monthly and $39 per month when billed annually.
- Teams: It costs $125 per month when billed monthly and $99 per month when billed annually.
- Business: Custom quotes.
Features
- Browser extension available.
- Support up to 30 languages.
- Integrates with Zapier, Webflow, Make, Google Sheets, and other tools.
- Collaboration capability.
Pros
- Provides up-to-date information and cites sources.
- Offers over 50 built-in templates.
- Its user management capability allows you to control who can access documents in your workspace with user-specific permission settings to make private, view, edit, or be available to everyone.
Cons
- Some users reported that Jasper is somewhat pricey.
- Users may experience incomplete sentences when using Focus mode with Jasper.
Key Features of Generative AI Chatbots
Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing is an important feature of a generative AI chatbot. NLP enables the AI chatbot to understand and interpret casual conversational input from users, allowing them to have more human-like conversations. With NLP capabilities, generative AI chatbots can recognize context, intent, and entities within the conversation.
Context Understanding
Chatbot’s ability to comprehend and retain context during conversations enables a more seamless and human-like conversation flow. A quality artificial intelligence chatbot can maintain context and remember previous interactions, providing more personalized and relevant responses based on the conversation history. This enables chatbots to provide more coherent and relevant replies.
Personalization
When shopping for a generative AI chatbot software, customization and personalization capabilities are important factors to consider, as it enables the tool to tailor responses based on user preferences and history. ChatGPT, for instance, allows businesses to train and fine-tune chatbots to align with their brand, industry-specific terminology, and user preferences.
Multilingual support
AI chatbot’s ability to communicate in multiple languages makes it appealing to global audiences. This functionality also allows the chatbot to translate text from one language to another.
Also see: Best Artificial Intelligence Software 2023
How to Choose the Best Generative AI Chatbot For Your Business
The best generative AI chatbot for your company serves your business’s needs and balances quality service with moderately expensive – or affordable pricing – based on what works with your budget, plus the necessary AI features you need for your operations.
Organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem may find Bing Chat Enterprise beneficial, as it works better on Edge browser. ChatGPT does not cite sources, but it is one of the most versatile and creative AI chatbots. Google Bard cites sources and provides up-to-date information, but its response time is sometimes slow. Bing Chat and Chatsonic can generate AI images as part of the answer to your query.
What seems like positives to you may be negatives to another user and vice versa. The best tool for your business is unique to you – conduct your own research, identify your goals, and shop for a tool that offers features and capabilities that meet your requirements.
How We Evaluated the Best Generative AI Chatbots
Cost – 20%
We reviewed each AI chatbot pricing model and available plans, plus the availability of a free trial to test out the platform. Our research found that some platforms are completely free while some offer both free and paid plans – a tool like Google Bard gives you access to all its features for free, ChatGPT has a free plan with access to GPT 3.5 capabilities, while GPT 4 requires a monthly subscription. On the other hand, Jasper is a completely paid chatbot offering a seven-day free trial.
Features set – 30%
Features carry the most weight (30%) in our evaluation process. We evaluated various capabilities offered by each generative AI software, including multi-language support, the ability to accept spoken word input, the programmability of the solution, the kind of users it is built for and customization options.
Ease of use – 25%
We assessed each generative AI software’s user interface and overall user experience. This included evaluating the ease of installation, setup process, and navigation within the platform. A well-designed and intuitive interface with clear documentation, support materials and the AI chatbot response time contributed to a higher score in this category.
Quality of output – 10%
To determine the output quality generated by the AI chatbot software, we analyzed the accuracy of responses, coherence in conversation flow, and ability to understand and respond appropriately to user inputs. We selected our top solutions based on their ability to produce high-quality and contextually relevant responses consistently.
Support – 15%
Our analysis also considered the level of support provided by the AI software provider. We assessed the availability and responsiveness of customer support, including customer service hours, email support, live chat support and knowledge base.
AI Chatbots: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
We answered the most commonly asked questions about AI chatbots below.
What features should businesses look for in AI chatbots?
Key features to look for in AI chatbots include NLP capabilities, contextual understanding, multi-language support, pre-trained knowledge and conversation flow management. It is also important to look for a tool with a high accuracy rating, even if the questions asked are complex or open-ended.
Why are AI chatbots important for businesses?
AI chatbots are important to businesses because they enhance customer experience and provide various operational benefits such as improved customer experience, personalized experiences, cost reduction, and increased productivity.
How can AI chatbots enhance customer support and engagement?
AI chatbots can boost customer support by providing 24/7 support, answering common questions, and personalizing interaction based on customer preferences (for instance, multilingual AI chatbots can communicate in multiple languages, enabling businesses to assist customers from different regions.
Bottom Line: Top AI Chatbots
Determining the “best” generative AI chatbot software of 2023 can be subjective, as it largely depends on the business’s specific needs and objectives. The landscape of AI chatbot software is continuously evolving, and new chatbot entrants may offer innovative features and improvements over existing solutions. Therefore, the best chatbot for your business will vary based on factors such as industry, use case, budget, and desired features – there is no “one size fits all” solution.
Read next: 100+ Top AI Companies 2023