Now, pretty much every major tech company has launched its own chatbot to compete with ChatGPT, including Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Meta AI. Smaller startups also have working AI chatbots that compete well against trillion-dollar companies, including Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity.
At CNET, we reviewed all of those AI chatbots to find the best one for you (side note: doing so rewired my brain). The list below focuses on free versions as opposed to paid ones, but note that most AI chatbots do have a paid tier that often performs better than the free version. For most people, however, the free chatbot will get you 90% of what you need.
What is the best AI chatbot of 2024 so far?
Claude by Anthropic is the best AI chatbot overall right now. That doesn’t mean ChatGPT or Perplexity are bad. Actually, both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Overall, though, the breadth at which Claude is able to answer questions and its calibration towards nuance and engagement should make it the most valuable to most people.
Best overall AI chatbot
Anthropic/Screenshot by Lisa Lacy/CNET
Like
Gives nuanced answers with detail
Fast and well organized
Don’t like
Not connected to the internet
Doesn’t automatically provide sources
Claude by Anthropic is CNET Editors’ Choice for the best overall AI chatbot. That doesn’t mean it excels at every task compared to the competition. Rather, it does a consistent job and goes further than what’s coming out of Google, Microsoft, Perplexity and OpenAI at the free tier.
The major things holding Claude back are its apathetic linking to outside sources and the lack of an Android app. If Anthropic could better tune Claude to have access to the open internet to link to sources and shopping links, it’d make the chatbot a true one-stop-shop. Despite the omission, the quality of its responses and its willingness to engage in heady conversations make it the most useful overall. I also like how Claude is more willing to engage and ask the user questions.
Gives meaningful answers with a good amount of context
Does most things well, including research, email writing and recommendations
Don’t like
Could tap more into historical context for explanations
Can be slow at times
Asking for sources can be tedious
A close contender for the top spot is OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, which is now available for free, albeit with caveats. OpenAI says that while free users will have access to its ChatGPT-4o model, when usage limits are reached based on demand, then free users will revert back to the older 3.5 model. While free users are able to ask ChatGPT-4o up to 40 messages every three hours, that number might be reduced due to high demand.
ChatGPT Free offers detailed and nuanced answers, but they weren’t quite as high-quality as Claude. Putting the two side-by-side, I noticed slight differences in the quality of answers. I particularly liked the specificity that Claude delved into when asking heavier political questions, such as the morality of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And like Claude, ChatGPT doesn’t link to outside sources. Sometimes when you ask it to provide sources, it’ll suggest things to Google or YouTube.
CNET doesn’t have a full review of ChatGPT Free yet (that’s coming soon), but I’ve tested it extensively enough to give it the second-place spot on this list.
Too much reliance on Reddit posts and forums, which aren’t citable for most people
Perplexity did the best job for research in my testing. The team at Perplexity has tuned its AI chatbot to add loads of links into answers. Hyperlinks can include journalistic publications, Reddit posts and even YouTube videos.
When writing essays or articles, links to actual sources are critical. Perplexity actually lists each source in a handy sidebar that can be easily accessed. And, thankfully, the sources aren’t simply Wikipedia, which won’t fly with your college professor. The only downside is that Perplexity does rely on forum posts and Reddit for its answers, which aren’t journalistic or scholarly. I’m sure the information is handy, but that will mean doing more research on your part to ensure those factoids are accurate and can be sourced to something more attributable.
But AI chatbots aren’t stationary pieces of technology that exist in a vacuum. Gemini has improved since I reviewed it back in April, although it still hallucinates. In my recent testing, for example, Gemini made up the name of a college professor and the name of an Adult Swim executive. And it simply refuses to answer heavier political questions, as does Microsoft’s Copilot.
But the one area in which Gemini did excel was in how-to guides and shopping recommendations. When I asked how to cut a perfect circle in a piece of vinyl, not only did Gemini give a list of instructions, it also linked to products on Amazon that could make the process easier. None of the other chatbots linked to Amazon products. When it came to shopping recommendations, Gemini gave quick and concise answers with links to where to buy products.
Testing for AI requires constant tweaking. Because companies are always looking at ways to improve their AI models, tests that worked to push AI chatbots last year or even last month might not work today. That said, we try to test AI chatbots with questions we believe normal people will ask. We aren’t necessarily trying to “break” AI chatbots with obtuse-sounding questions meant to confuse. Instead, we consider what might be asked when it comes to video game guides or shopping recommendations. Our tests also ask some heavier questions about difficult events happening around the world to see which are comfortable in actually engaging.
The AI chatbots that sit on this list, generally, are able to take on the tougher questions and give believable answers with nuance. Like reading an article written by a university professor, we want AI chatbots to have that same level of consideration for historical context and competing interests to try and leave the reader with a better understanding from a higher-level perspective.
When using an AI chatbot, keep your privacy and sensitive information in mind. For example, it might seem benign to have an AI chatbot summarize your company’s meeting notes. But, that data could inadvertently be used to train AI models further, and you’ve essentially lost control of it, according to experts. Plus, it’s totally within the realm of the privacy policies for AI companies to sell that data to third parties. While Google’s privacy policy might state that it’ll remove any personally identifiable information, it’s still best to err on the side of caution. Google actually outright recommends you don’t upload any confidential information whatsoever.
Other AI Chatbots We Tested
Microsoft Copilot: This chatbot, found on the Bing search engine, uses GPT-4 Turbo, a version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 that is optimized for speed. While Copilot is still a serviceable chatbot, it doesn’t answer questions with the same level of detail and nuance as Claude, ChatGPT-4o and Perplexity. Plus, its outright refusal to answer questions that are politically sensitive in nature is a demerit.
Meta AI: Unlike other AI chatbots, Meta AI not only has its own dedicated webpage, but is integrated into Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. When CNET’s Katelyn Chedraoui reviewed Meta AI earlier this year, she found it to be decent overall, but noncompetitive with the competition. While Meta AI did provide good shopping advice with some cajoling, and excelled in recipes, it fell short in other areas. When it came to research, despite it being connected to Google and Bing, it sourced nonscholarly papers, like an elementary school lesson plan.
ChatGPT 3.5: This service, which I tested earlier in 2024, has since been replaced by what OpenAI calls ChatGPT Free (which utilizes a combination of GPT-4o, GPT-4 and GPT-3.5). It is a competent AI chat engine that answers difficult questions with easy-to-understand language. It doesn’t hallucinate at the rate of Google Gemini, but there really isn’t a reason to switch ChatGPT to 3.5 when you can use 4o and 4 for free.
AI is a handy tool and can be a timesaver, but it isn’t necessary in day-to-day life. It’s totally possible to still Google Search your queries and read through articles to get the answer you’re looking for. Heck, it probably gives your brain more of a mental workout!
Anthropic Claude is currently CNET’s choice for the best free AI chatbot. Free versions of ChatGPT and Perplexity also offer great results with specific advantages and disadvantages. Google’s Gemini is great for shopping recommendations. Like Gemini, Microsoft’s CoPilot won’t answer heavier and more controversial questions.
While there are mobile apps for Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity, we prefer the ChatGPT app the most. It has a clean interface and is easy to navigate. But really, any app will get the job done. Unfortunately, Claude only has a mobile app for iOS and not Android.
Geoffrey Hinton, the researcher who developed the concept of neural networks and considered the godfather of AI, feels less enthusiastic about the technology he helped birth. As for using AI chatbots on a day-to-day basis, they’re handy tools that can synthesize the world’s information for you in seconds, saving you lots of research time. Just be aware that sometimes AI chatbots get things wrong and it’s good to do a Google Search for things that sound a bit dubious. Also, be careful when giving AI chatbots sensitive information. Don’t ask an AI chatbot to summarize your company’s trade secrets as privacy policies give AI companies wide latitude to do with that data as they please.
Editors’ note: CNET used an AI engine to help create several dozen stories, which are labeled accordingly. The note you’re reading is attached to articles that deal substantively with the topic of AI but are created entirely by our expert editors and writers. For more, see our AI policy.
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