Although AI is widespread in some fields, the general public is neither aware of nor interested in these tools. Some of the leading AI companies have changed their strategies to attract more users. Let's take a look at some previously paid AI tools that are now available for free.
AI is not as popular among the general public
When you follow the news about a particular subject, it can feel like everyone is talking about it. However, according to the BBC, less than 2% of British people use ChatGPT on a daily basis. While some use these tools regularly, there is potential to attract many more users from this huge untapped market.
Part of the strategy for these companies is to start offering more tools for their free tier. Until now, free users have been able to “try” the engine in different ways. For example, Anthropic allows users to send a few messages to Claude before being locked out. ChatGPT offers its previous stable model to free users, allowing them to experience the new model with a few questions.
Many AI companies are unwilling to change their existing approach, but realize that they need more users to grow. This is why they are adapting some of their tools to be available at a free level, giving free users access to some features that were previously inaccessible. Now is the perfect time to become a free AI user.
ChatGPT: Custom GPT and file and image uploads
Sydney Lou Butler / How-To Geek / MidJourney
ChatGPT is probably the best-known AI tool online. Previously, free users were limited to using previous models and were blocked from internet-enabled searches. They also didn't allow uploading images or files, forcing users to copy and paste anything they wanted to share on ChatGPT.
Free users can now explain their wishes on ChatGPT using images and snapshots. Additionally, if you're working on a file and need feedback or a new perspective, you can send the entire file to ChatGPT. There's still a limit to the number of files you can upload as a free user, but it's better than no options at all.
In a previous version, ChatGPT released what it called “custom GPTs” – LLMs that are trained to do specific things very well. For a few months, you had to pay to use these custom GPTs, but with the company's latest update, they're now available to free users too.
There are plenty of custom GPTs to check out, from marketing-based models to ones that help you write code in a specific language. Unfortunately, the option to build your own custom GPT is still a paid option, so you’ll have to make do with what’s already available.
Clode: larger context window, API tool system, system prompts
Not to be outdone, Claude from Anthropic also has a new toy for free users to play with. The basic response system has been significantly improved, now allowing 200,000 tokens instead of the previous 100,000. With double the token size, Claude can now reliably analyze as much as 150 pages of text. Claude has always been good at data analysis, but this addition makes it easier to handle much larger documents. This might make writing a novel with AI even easier!
An API tool system has been on the developer wish list for some time. API tooling would make it easier to connect Claude to things like databases, allowing the AI to perform its own actions on the data in the database. Note that Anthropic does not provide user tooling, so these tools are developer-defined.
Developers have full access to the system prompts, allowing them to configure Claude's answers in specific ways, which can be useful if you want to customize Claude's personality to something different, or if you want Claude to include less redundant information in his answers.
Anthropic also notes that this version of Claude has a significantly lower incidence of hallucinations than previous versions, and while hallucinations in AI will always be an issue, it's a step in the right direction towards reducing how often AIs fabricate “facts.”
Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic appears to be tweaking its free tier to encourage more developers to use Claude. Time will tell if they see any benefit from these improvements offered in the free tier.
Perplexity's pages provide users with ready-made content
Lucas Gouveia / Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
While AI can develop content from scratch, Perplexity AI takes it a step further with its Pages service. The tool allows users to create fully-featured pages and host them for anyone interested in that topic to view. Instead of having ChatGPT or Claude write the content that needs formatting, Perplexity does it all for free.
While this is a big step towards making information sharing easier, there are still big questions about who this particular tool is for: The tool creates pages, but access to those pages is limited to other Perplexity users – and by users we mean all users, not just those who share the link.
Despite its shortcomings, this is a very useful tool if you're working on a research project and need a quick mockup to show others. On the plus side, the tool includes all the online references it finds to generate your page, making it less likely you'll hallucinate. While this tool won't replace Wikipedia as a reference site anytime soon, it's pretty impressive for what's available to free users.
Free AI services are becoming more and more popular
With each iteration, free AI gets easier to use and more powerful. Even if you're using a model that's a little older than the current one, you have access to other tools that can make LLM run more efficiently. Tools like Pages by Perplexity are a great way to make the generated information more readable and understandable. These free AI tools, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, are useful to different people in different ways. Maybe one of these tools will be useful for one of your projects.
