AI chatbots have taken over the internet, and 2025 is proving to be the most competitive year yet. Almost every week, there’s either a new AI chatbot or a new model with allegedly better benchmarks. From OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Elon Musk’s Grok, companies are pushing the limits of large language models (LLMs) to deliver smarter, faster, and more human-like AI assistants. But with so many options, which one is right for you?
We break down the best LLM-powered AI chatbots available today, their standout features, pricing, and where to find them.
1. ChatGPT (OpenAI)
🔗 Website: chat.openai.com
💰 Pricing: Free (GPT-4-turbo limited), $20/month (ChatGPT Plus with GPT-4-turbo)
ChatGPT famously kickstarted this AI chat assistant arms race back in 2022 and still remains the go-to AI chatbot for millions, offering conversational intelligence across various domains. Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4-turbo, it provides high-quality responses for just about anything like marketing copy, email replies, music lyrics, poems, homework assignments, code generation, and even image creation via DALL·E.
ChatGPT is Free and good enough for starters. But the Plus plan unlocks faster responses and better reasoning capabilities from the companies more advanced models. ChatGPT has an Enterprise package which offers custom pricing for businesses with higher limits and advanced features. They also offer OpenAI API, a Pay-per-use pricing based on tokens (GPT-4-turbo is significantly cheaper per token than GPT-4)
ChatGPT is a top-tier AI for both casual and professional users.
2. DeepSeek
🔗 Website: deepseek.com
💰 Pricing: Free, Pro plans available
DeepSeek AI took by the world by storm at the beginning of 2025 when they announced their DeepSeek R1 model. What was most outstanding is that it’s open source and it took far less to train the model than what competitors like OpenAI or Google were spending on. Coming from China, it challenged the U.S. dominance in the AI arm’s race. Additionally, the model focuses on deep reasoning and technical problem-solving. Unlike many generic chatbots, DeepSeek excels in math, science, and engineering-related queries, making it an ideal choice for researchers, developers and students. Its core strength lies in logical thinking, outperforming many LLMs in problem-solving tasks.
3. Gemini (Google)
🔗 Website: gemini.google.com
💰 Pricing: Free (Gemini 2.0), Premium with Google One AI(at $20/month)
Following the announcement of chatGPT, Google in panic mode quickly announced their own LLM model called Bard. The launch was a disaster having made several false responses, but Google quickly iterated their product with an improved model called Google Gemini. This is a multimodal AI, meaning it can handle text, images, and even voice commands seamlessly.
Integrated with Google Search, Docs, and Assistant, Gemini is perfect for productivity-focused users. Further more, if you are a software developer, Google announced Gemini Code Assist, a model based on Gemini 2.0 that supports all programming languages in the public domain and offers 180K code completions per month for free. The Google One AI Premium plan which costs $20/month gives users access to its most powerful models.
4. Meta AI
🔗 Website: meta.ai
💰 Pricing: Free
Not wanting to be left behind, Meta, the company that owns Facebook also has its own LLM called Meta AI. Naturally, this AI assistant is embedded across Meta’s products such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. So if you already in the Meta ecosystem, you don’t have to download another AI assistant. Personally, I use Meta AI inside Whatsapp occasionally to lookup a few things. While it may not be as advanced as ChatGPT or Gemini, it’s perfect for quick social interactions, real-time translations, and fun chatbot experiences inside Meta’s apps.
5. Le Chat(Mistral)
🔗 Website: chat.mistral.ai
💰 Pricing: Free, Paid plans
Le Chat by Mistral AI is a cutting-edge conversational AI developed by Mistral AI, a French company at the forefront of Europe’s AI revolution. Designed with a strong emphasis on data privacy, open-weight models, and regulatory compliance, Le Chat appeals particularly to European users and businesses navigating the EU’s strict digital regulations, such as the GDPR. Unlike many U.S.-based LLMs, Mistral AI prioritizes transparency, making its models available for open-source deployment while ensuring alignment with Europe’s ethical AI standards. This makes Le Chat a preferred choice for EU organizations and enterprises seeking a sovereign AI alternative that respects European data policies without sacrificing performance.
6. Copilot (Microsoft)
🔗 Website: copilot.microsoft.com
💰 Pricing: Free, Premium with Microsoft 365
Microsoft invested billions of dollars in OpenAI in an effort to improve on Bing its search engine and unseat Google’s dominance. However, this did very little to change Google’s search market share. So Microsoft has shited its focus more towards incorporating Copilot, it’s AI assistant powered in part by OpenAI is deeply integrated into Windows, Office 365, and Edge, making it the best AI assistant for work and productivity. It helps users write emails, summarize documents, and automate workflows, especially for corporate and business environments. Further more, Copilot is heavily used by software developers as an AI coding assistant in Integrated Development environments such as VS Code.
7. Claude (Anthropic)
🔗 Website: claude.ai
💰 Pricing: Free, Claude Pro ($20/month)
Claude AI by Anthropic is a highly capable language model designed with a strong focus on AI safety, reliability, and user-friendly interactions. Developed by the U.S.-based AI research company Anthropic, Claude is known for its Constitutional AI approach, which ensures ethical, transparent, and aligned responses. The company has received significant backing from Amazon, with the tech giant investing up to $4 billion to support Anthropic’s AI advancements.
Claude has particularly received praise from software developers for its coding abilities. At the end of February, the company released Claude 3.7 Sonnet, their most advanced AI model yet and the first hybrid reasoning model in the market. This model offers near-instant responses or detailed, step-by-step reasoning, with API users gaining fine-grained control over response depth. Claude 3.7 Sonnet brings significant improvements in coding, especially for front-end web development. Alongside the model, Anthropic is launched Claude Code, a command-line tool for agentic coding, allowing developers to offload substantial engineering tasks directly from their terminal.
In terms of pricing, Claude AI offers a free tier with access to its standard model for casual users. For those needing more power and faster responses, Anthropic provides Claude Pro, a paid subscription that unlocks access to its most advanced models. Businesses and developers can also integrate Claude into their workflows through Anthropic’s API pricing, which follows a usage-based model similar to other leading LLM providers.
8. Perplexity AI
🔗 Website: perplexity.ai
💰 Pricing: Free, Pro plan available
Perplexity is like ChatGPT meets Google Search—a research assistant that cites sources and provides real-time web search capabilities. Unlike traditional chatbots, Perplexity prioritizes accurate, citation-backed responses, making it a powerful research tool for professionals, students, and curious users who want trustworthy, up-to-date information.
A key differentiator is its web-connected nature where it fetches and summarize the latest information from the internet instead of relying solely on pre-trained data. Perplexity AI offers a free tier with basic features and a Pro plan that provides faster, more advanced responses with enhanced search capabilities. It’s perfect for users who need up-to-date information, fact-checking, and academic research.
9. Grok (xAI by Elon Musk)
🔗 Website: x.ai/grok.com
💰 Pricing: Free (limited), Premium+ on X (formerly Twitter)
Grok is Elon Musk’s answer to OpenAI and Google. This AI assistant is tightly integrated into X. More so, its one of the AI assistants with a more sarcastic and witty personality. I use Grok to quickly lookup facts or ask follow-up questions to a specific tweet. Grok is a great choice for social media users who want real-time insights and meme-friendly responses. However, you can also use it as a dedicated application from grok.com, if you are not on X.com/Twitter.
10. Kimi
🔗 Website: kimi.com
💰 Pricing: Free, Pro plans available
Kimi AI’s latest version, is an advanced artificial intelligence model developed by Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI. Kimi focuses on privacy and on-device AI processing. It’s ideal for users who don’t want their conversations stored in the cloud. Unlike other chatbots, Kimi runs partially offline which means your data remains secure.
11. YouChat (You.com)
🔗 Website: you.com
💰 Pricing: Free, Premium plan available
YouChat combines AI-powered chat with an AI-powered search engine, delivering interactive results rather than just text responses. If you’re looking for a chatbot that integrates web search without hallucinations, YouChat is a strong alternative to Google.
12. HuggingChat
🔗 Website: huggingface.co
💰 Pricing: Free
If you are Machine learning developer or enthusiast looking to learn how AI models work, then this one is for you. HuggingChat is an open-source AI chatbot, powered by the Hugging Face community. According to their about us page, they “are on a mission to democratize good machine learning, one commit at a time”. It’s perfect for developers and AI enthusiasts who want to experiment with custom AI models without relying on closed systems like OpenAI or Google.
13. Pi (Inflection AI)
🔗 Website: pi.ai
💰 Pricing: Free
Pi AI claims to be “the first emotionally intelligent AI”. If you have watched the Sci-Fi movie Her, then Pi AI appears to follow that path. It is designed to be a personal AI companion, focusing on emotional intelligence and mental well-being. So it’s a great option if you’re looking for an AI that acts more like a supportive coach rather than a pure information engine.
14. Abacus AI
🔗 Website: chatllm.abacus.ai
💰 Pricing: Free
Abacus.AI is a platform designed to help enterprises and professionals integrate AI into their workflows. It offers two main products: ChatLLM for individuals and small teams, and Abacus.AI Enterprise for larger organizations.
ChatLLM serves as a multi-functional assistant which allows users to access large language models, analyze data, generate code, create images, and more, with reported productivity improvements ranging from 15% to 75%. Abacus.AI Enterprise focuses on automating business processes, connecting with enterprise software systems, and enhancing operational efficiency. The company is backed by notable investors like Eric Schmidt, Ram Shriram, and Index Ventures, and its founding team includes AI experts with backgrounds at Google, Amazon Web Services, and Uber.
15. Qwen (Alibaba Cloud)
🔗 Website: qwen.ai
💰 Pricing: Free, Enterprise pricing available
Developed by Alibaba Cloud, Qwen is a China-focused AI assistant with strong capabilities in business intelligence, translation, and e-commerce support. First launched in April 2023, it’s on Meta’s Llama but heavily modified. In 2024, Alibaba released Qwen 2, using a mixture of experts, and QwQ-32B-Preview, a reasoning-focused model. The Qwen-VL series combines vision transformers with LLMs, with Qwen-vl-max as its flagship visual model. Over 100 Qwen models have been open-sourced, downloaded 40+ million times, and fine-tuned by enthusiasts. In 2025, Qwen 2.5-Max reportedly outperformed models like GPT-4o and DeepSeek-V3 in benchmarks, solidifying its position as a top Chinese and global AI model.
It’s a great tool for Chinese-speaking professionals and businesses looking for AI-driven automation.
A notable mention is Amazon’s Alexa+ which got released a few days ago. This AI assistant is touted to the next generation to Alexa voice assistant. It’s currently priced at $20/month and free for Prime subscribers.
Which AI Chatbot Should You Choose?
- For general use → ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude
- For research & real-time web search → Perplexity, YouChat
- For business & work productivity → Microsoft Copilot, Kimi
- For AI with personality → Grok, Pi
- For privacy-focused AI → Kimi, HuggingChat
- For Chinese-language AI → Deepseek, Qwen
With so many options, 2025 is the best time to find an AI that fits your needs. Which chatbot are you using the most? Let us know in the comments!
Discover more from Dignited
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
