Top 12 Free AI Chatbots 2024: No Cost, Endless Viability

Margaret

Ever feel like you could use a brilliant conversationalist in your life?

Someone knowledgeable to bounce ideas off, get advice from, or simply chat with about any topic under the sun? Well, thanks to the wonders of artificial intelligence, that's exactly what you can get – for free!

The latest AI chatbots have become incredibly sophisticated, able to engage in intelligent, multi-layered dialogue on everything from science and history to philosophy and pop culture.

And the best part? There are some amazing Free AI chatbots out there that won't cost you a dime to use.

Top 12 Free AI Chatbots of 2024

AI ChatbotsLanguage ModelPaid Plans
ChatGPTOpenAI’s 3.5Yes
CopilotOpenAI’s GPT 4Yes
Perplexity.aiOpenAI’s GPT 3Yes
ClaudeClaude 3Yes
HuggingChatHuggingChat
You.comN/AYes
Llama 2Meta’s Llama 2
SocraticFrom GoogleYes
PiInflection-1Yes
Character.aiN/AYes
Amazon CodewhispererN/A
Elicit AIN/AYes

1. ChatGPT

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an advanced AI chatbot that uses natural language processing to engage in human-like conversations. Developed by OpenAI, it can understand context, answer follow-up questions, and assist with a wide variety of tasks like writing, coding, and analysis. ChatGPT is powered by large language models trained on humongous amounts of online data.

ChatGPT Key features

  • ChatGPT can comprehend and respond to queries written in everyday language, making it highly accessible and user-friendly.
  • By understanding the context of a conversation, ChatGPT can provide relevant and coherent responses, even when the discussion spans multiple topics. 
  • From creative writing to coding to answering questions, ChatGPT can assist with a wide range of tasks thanks to its extensive knowledge base. 
  • Users can ask ChatGPT to rephrase, expand on, or improve its responses, allowing for more precise and tailored outputs.

What is ChatGPT Best for?

ChatGPT excels at tasks that require understanding natural language, recalling relevant information, and generating human-like text. It's a powerful tool for brainstorming ideas, drafting content, explaining complex topics, and even engaging in open-ended conversations.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Saves time on research and writing tasks
  • Provides instant access to a vast knowledge base
  • Offers personalized assistance tailored to user needs
  • Encourages exploration and learning through interactive conversations

Cons:

  • Lacks the deeper understanding and critical thinking of humans
  • Could be used to generate misleading content or enable cheating

2. Copilot

Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that integrates into Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. It also uses advanced natural language processing and machine learning to help users automate tasks, generate content, analyze data, and collaborate more efficiently.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Key features

  • Copilot can create drafts, summaries, and outlines in Word, craft engaging emails in Outlook, and even generate ideas and content for PowerPoint presentations based on prompts.
  • In Excel, Copilot assists with complex tasks like generating formulas, creating pivot tables, and building insightful charts to help users make data-driven decisions.
  • Copilot provides real-time meeting transcriptions, generates summaries, and helps users catch up on missed meetings by highlighting key points and action items.
  • Copilot integrates directly into the familiar Microsoft 365 interface and learns from user preferences and behavior to provide personalized assistance as per individual work styles.

What is Microsoft Copilot Best for?

Copilot can be great for boosting productivity and efficiency for knowledge workers and professionals who heavily rely on Microsoft 365 apps for their daily tasks. It simplifies complex workflows, automates repetitive actions, and enables users to focus on higher-value work by handling mundane tasks. Copilot is particularly useful for creating reports, analyzing data, managing email overload, and collaborating with team members.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Enhances creativity and idea generation with intelligent suggestions
  • Improves collaboration and communication within teams
  • Integrates seamlessly into familiar Microsoft 365 apps

Cons:

  • Requires a learning curve to fully utilize its capabilities
  • May lead to over-reliance on AI and reduced critical thinking skills

3. Perplexity.ai

Perplexity ai

Perplexity.ai is one of the top-tier AI-powered search engine that provides accurate, comprehensive answers to complex questions using advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms.

Perplexity.ai offers real-time web search capabilities, detailed source citations, and a user-friendly chatbot interface. Perplexity.ai excels at research-oriented tasks, delivering in-depth, reliable information for academic and professional use.

Perplexity.ai Key Features

  • Perplexity.ai performs up-to-the-minute searches across the internet, ensuring users receive the most current information available.
  • Unlike many AI platforms, Perplexity.ai provides detailed citations and references for the sources it uses to generate answers.
  • With a simple, intuitive design resembling traditional search engines, Perplexity.ai offers a seamless user experience. 
  • Perplexity.ai works over a wide range of users, including researchers, writers, artists, musicians, and programmers.

What is it Perplexity.ai for?

Perplexity.ai shines as a powerful tool for research and information-gathering purposes. Its ability to provide accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive answers backed by reliable sources makes it an invaluable asset for academics, journalists, and professionals who require in-depth, factual information. By integrating real-time web search capabilities with advanced natural language processing, Perplexity.ai streamlines the research process, saving users time and effort while ensuring the quality and relevance of the information obtained.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Provides accurate, reliable information backed by citations
  • Offers real-time search results for up-to-date information
  • User-friendly interface and chatbot functionality
  • Versatile tool for various professions and tasks

Cons:

  • May not always provide perfect answers, requiring users to verify information
  • Subscription required for advanced features like GPT-4 access

4. Claude

Claude

Claude is an advanced AI assistant developed by Anthropic. It uses natural language processing to engage in helpful, honest conversations and assist with a wide range of tasks. Claude has a large knowledge base, understands context, and generates human-like responses.

Claude Key features

  • 100,000 token context window allows Claude to understand and respond to long, complex queries
  • Trained on data up to early 2023, providing more current information than some competitors
  • Can process and summarize uploaded files like PDFs and Word documents to leverage that information in conversations
  • Follows Constitutional AI principles to be helpful, harmless, and honest, avoiding deceptive or dangerous outputs

What is Claude Best for?

Claude performs well at open-ended conversation, answering questions, providing explanations, and assisting with writing, coding, and research tasks. Its ability to analyze long documents, remember context, and provide nuanced, coherent responses makes it a powerful tool for knowledge work and customer support applications.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Highly capable at a wide variety of language tasks
  • Engages in more truthful and transparent conversations
  • Currently offers a free public access option
  • Supports document uploads for expanded knowledge

Cons:

  • Less brand recognition than competitors like ChatGPT
  • Lacks some features like image generation

5. HuggingChat

HuggingChat

HuggingChat is an open-source AI chatbot developed by Hugging Face, offering an accessible and customizable alternative to ChatGPT. Powered by advanced language models like LLaMA and Falcon, HuggingChat provides engaging, human-like conversations across various topics and tasks.

HuggingChat Key features

  • Open-source platform allowing for transparency, collaboration, and customization.
  • Supports multiple languages and can be easily integrated into existing applications.
  • Offers features like writing assistance, coding support, task management, and web search.
  • Continuously evolving with community contributions and updates to underlying language models.

What is HuggingChat for?

HuggingChat is a preferred choice at providing personalized, context-aware conversations for general knowledge queries, creative writing, and task-oriented assistance. Its open-source nature and flexibility make it suitable for developers looking to integrate conversational AI into their applications.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Free and openly accessible to everyone
  • Highly customizable and adaptable to specific use cases
  • Fosters transparency and community-driven development

Cons:

  • Requires clearer instructions for optimal performance
  • Limited memory for context retention within a single conversation

6. You.com

You.com

You.com is an AI-powered search engine and platform that provides personalized, private, and interactive search experiences. It offers features like YouChat for conversational search, YouCode for developer resources, YouWrite for AI writing assistance, and YouImagine for AI image generation. You.com aims to empower users with control over their data and online experience.

You.com Key features

  • Personalized search results based on user preferences and interests, without compromising privacy.
  • AI chat and apps integrated into search for interactive experiences like chatting, coding, writing and image creation.
  • Compatibility and integration with other software and platforms for a seamless workflow.
  • User-friendly interface with visual elements and intuitive navigation for an engaging search experience.

What is You.com for?

You.com is best for users who value privacy, personalization and productivity in their online searches. Its AI-powered features enable users to quickly find relevant information, get tasks done, – all within one platform. You.com offers a compelling alternative to ad-driven search engines by putting user agency and experience first.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Strong focus on user privacy and data control
  • Innovative AI features for chat, coding, writing and image generation
  • Personalized and interactive search experience
  • Ad-free results and clean interface

Cons:

  • Requires more active input and feedback from users to improve results
  • Monetization model and future direction not yet clear

7. Llama 2

Llama 2

Llama 2 is an open-source large language model developed by Meta AI. It offers a suite of foundation models ranging from 7B to 70B parameters, delivering exceptional performance on various benchmarks including reasoning, coding, and knowledge tests. Llama 2 models have been trained on an impressive 2 trillion tokens and fine-tuned with over 1 million human annotations, outperforming other open-source language models.

Llama 2 Key features

  • Open-source nature fosters collaboration and customization for diverse applications.
  • Efficient architecture allows fine-tuning on consumer-grade hardware, even for the 70B model.
  • Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) enhances safety and helpfulness in chatbot applications.
  • Versatile training data enables understanding nuances across multiple domains, facilitating domain-specific fine-tuning.

What is Llama 2 Best for?

Llama 2 excels in customer support, content generation, data analysis, grammar correction, and content moderation tasks. Its open-source license and customizable nature make it an attractive alternative for developers and businesses seeking a powerful, cost-effective language model.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Free and open-source, allowing commercial use with minimal restrictions
  • Highly efficient, enabling fine-tuning on consumer-level hardware
  • Delivers strong performance across various benchmarks and applications

Cons:

  • Primarily English-focused, with limited multilingual capabilities compared to other models
  • Potential ethical concerns and edge cases that may circumvent safety protocols

8. Socratic

Socratic

Socratic is an AI-powered learning app from Google that helps students understand concepts and get unstuck on homework problems. Using text and speech recognition, Socratic surfaces the most relevant learning resources like step-by-step explanations and helpful videos for each question asked.

Socratic Key features

  • Snap a photo of a homework question and Socratic uses strong text recognition to understand the problem and provide instant explanations curated from expert-created study guides. 
  • Ask a question using your voice and Socratic will find the best online resources to teach you the underlying concepts. 
  • Covers a wide range of academic subjects including Science, Math, Literature, Social Studies and more, with new subjects being added. 
  • All learning resources provided, including videos and step-by-step help, are carefully curated and come from trusted sources. 

What is Socratic Best for?

Socratic is best for helping students get deeper understanding of concepts they are struggling with or reviewing material at their own pace outside of the classroom. By providing on-demand access to reliable explanations and resources, it empowers students to take ownership of their learning and get unstuck whenever they need assistance. 

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Provides instant, detailed explanations and resources to help students learn concepts on their own
  • Versatile and covers a wide range of academic subjects
  • Completely free for students to use

Cons:

  • Students could misuse it to get quick answers without actually learning
  • Requires an internet connection to access the AI-powered features and online resources

9. Pi

Pi

Pi is an AI chatbot created by Inflection AI that provides personalized, engaging conversations and emotional support. Powered by advanced natural language processing and deep learning, Pi offers empathetic and contextually relevant responses, acting as a virtual companion to explore ideas, seek advice, and discuss various topics.

Pi Key features

  • Pi tailors its interactions based on the user's unique interests and needs, creating a genuine conversational experience.
  • Utilizing sophisticated algorithms, Pi analyzes and responds to user emotions with empathy and understanding.
  • Pi generates original, coherent responses on the fly based on context and user input.
  • Pi offers natural-sounding voice options for audio-based conversations, enhancing the human-like experience.

What is Pi Best for?

Pi excels as a supportive, emotionally intelligent chatbot for those seeking a virtual companion to discuss personal topics, explore ideas, and receive friendly advice. Its ability to provide empathetic, context-aware responses and engage in meaningful conversations sets it apart as a tool for emotional support and self-expression.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Offers personalized, emotionally supportive conversations
  • Generates contextually relevant, empathetic responses
  • Provides a safe space for self-expression and idea exploration
  • Available across multiple platforms for easy access

Cons:

  • Risk of over-reliance or emotional attachment to an AI chatbot
  • Knowledge limitations compared to other AI assistants

10. Character.ai

Character AI

Character.ai is an innovative AI chatbot platform that enables users to engage in dynamic conversations with virtual characters. Using advanced language models, it offers a range of pre-existing and user-generated characters, from historical figures to fictional personalities. Users can customize characters, crafting unique traits and conversational styles. 

Character.ai Key features

  • Choose from pre-existing characters or create your own, tailoring their personality, background, and conversational style.
  • Character.ai utilizes natural language processing to enable fluid, contextually relevant conversations that adapt to user input.
  • The community actively contributes to refining characters through ratings and feedback, ensuring an updated and engaging experience.
  • Character.ai can be used for creative writing, education, entertainment, mental health support, and problem-solving, among other purposes.

What is Character.ai Best for?

Character.ai excels at providing an immersive, interactive experience for users seeking engaging conversations with diverse personalities. Its ability to simulate human-like dialogue makes it an excellent tool for creative writing, language learning, and exploring different perspectives. The platform's user-friendly interface and customization options allow for tailored interactions suited to individual preferences and needs.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Offers a wide variety of characters and customization options
  • Generates natural, context-aware conversations
  • Fosters creativity and problem-solving through diverse perspectives
  • Free to use with optional paid subscription for advanced features

Cons:

  • Lacks API for broader integration with other applications
  • Strict content filtering may limit some types of interactions

11. Amazon Codewhisperer

Amazon Codewhisperer

Amazon CodeWhisperer is an AI-powered coding companion that provides real-time code suggestions based on comments and existing code. It supports multiple programming languages and integrates with popular IDEs, helping developers write code faster and more securely.

Amazon CodeWhisperer Key features

  • CodeWhisperer offers context-aware code recommendations customized to the developer's coding style and conventions.
  • It can detect security vulnerabilities in Python, Java, and JavaScript code and suggest remediation.
  • CodeWhisperer flags code suggestions that resemble open-source code, providing repository URLs and license information for review.
  • It is optimized for use with AWS services, offering code suggestions that adhere to AWS best practices.

What is CodeWhisperer Best for?

CodeWhisperer works exceptionally well at accelerating development by generating entire functions and code blocks based on natural language comments. It helps developers stay focused by providing tailored suggestions directly in their IDE, reducing the need to search for code snippets elsewhere.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Boosts productivity by generating code suggestions and helping avoid time-consuming coding tasks
  • Enhances code quality and security through built-in vulnerability scanning and remediation suggestions
  • Encourages responsible AI use by filtering out potentially biased or unfair code

Cons:

  • Has limitations in handling complex or novel coding tasks that need more creativity
  • May raise concerns about the ownership and responsibility of AI-generated code

12. Elicit AI

Elicit AI

Elicit is an AI research assistant that automates time-consuming research tasks like finding relevant papers, extracting key information, and synthesizing findings. Developed by Ought, it uses language models like GPT-3 to streamline literature reviews.

Elicit Key features

  • Breaks down complex research tasks into understandable pieces, helping users identify what to check.
  • Extracts key data from papers into organized tables that can be customized.
  • Computes a paper's “trustworthiness” based on factors like funding sources and trial sizes.
  • Provides tools to brainstorm research questions, suggest search terms, and summarize abstracts.

What is Elicit Best for?

Elicit works best for empirical research questions involving experiments and concrete results, commonly found in biomedicine, social science, economics, and machine learning. It excels at questions like “What are the effects of X on Y?” by finding relevant papers without exact keyword matches.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Saves significant time and effort in literature reviews
  • Scales up reasoning and evidence synthesis as a public benefit
  • Extracts granular data and generates summaries linked to sources

Cons:

  • AI accuracy and comprehensiveness not perfect, requires human verification
  • Cannot answer questions not covered in academic papers

What are the Benefits of AI Chatbots for Businesses?

Key benefits include cost savings, improved customer engagement, increased sales, valuable customer insights, and the ability to provide 24/7 support. Chatbots free up human agents for more complex issues.

Can AI Chatbots Understand Context and Nuance?

Advanced AI chatbots can maintain context over the course of a conversation and pick up on some nuance and intent. However, they still struggle with more complex human communication aspects.

How Do You Train an AI Chatbot?

Training involves providing the chatbot with relevant industry data, common queries, and appropriate responses. Machine learning models are then applied to help the chatbot learn patterns and generate suitable replies.

What are the Limitations of AI Chatbots?

Current limitations include difficulty with very complex queries, lack of true empathy and general intelligence, potential for biased outputs, and inability to handle edge cases not covered in training data.

How do AI Chatbots Ensure Security and Privacy?

Reputable chatbot platforms employ encryption, access controls, secure hosting, and regular security audits. Sensitive data collection should be minimized and protected.

Can AI Chatbots Replace Human Agents Completely?

In most cases, no. AI chatbots are best used to complement human agents by handling routine tier-1 support queries, while humans focus on more complex and sensitive issues requiring empathy and creative problem-solving.

Epilogue

There you have it – my top 12 picks for the best free AI chatbots online in 2024! These chatbots are the cream of the crop, offering incredible features and mind-blowing performance that'll make you wonder if you're talking to a real person.

But hey, don't just take my word for it. I want you to experience these amazing chatbots for yourself! Go ahead and give them a try – strike up a conversation, ask for help with a task, or just have some fun. 

Trust me, you won't be disappointed!

So what are you waiting for? 

Check out which one becomes your new favorite virtual buddy. 

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