Quick LinksAI Isn't All That Popular Among Regular People ChatGPT: Custom GPTs and Uploading Files and Images Claude: Larger Context Window, API Tool System, and System Prompts Perplexity's Pages Give Users Ready-Made Content Free AI Offerings Are Getting Better

AI is prevalent in some circles, but the general population doesn't know or care about these tools. Several of the largest AI companies have changed tactics to get more users on board. Let's check out which formerly paywalled AI tools are now usable for free.

AI Isn't All That Popular Among Regular People

When you're paying attention to news about a particular thing, it sometimes feels like everyone's talking about it. However, the BBC shows less than 2% of British people use ChatGPT daily. Some regular people use these tools, but they could attract many more users from this massive untapped market.

Part of these companies' strategy is to start offering more tools for their free tier of users. Historically, free users could get a "taste" of the engine in different ways. Anthropic, for example, lets users have a few messages to Claude before they're locked off. ChatGPT offers its previous stable model to free users and lets them experience the newer model for a few questions.

While unwilling to mess with their existing approach, many AI companies realize that they need more users to grow. Because of this, they have changed some of their tools to be used in the free tier, offering free users access to a few things they never had before. It's an excellent time to be a free AI user.

ChatGPT: Custom GPTs and Uploading Files and Images

ChatGPT is probably the most well-known AI tool online. Previously, free users were limited to using the previous model and blocked from internet-enabled searches. They also weren't allowed to upload images or files, leading to users having to copy-paste the things they wanted to share with ChatGPT.

Now, free users can explain what they want to ChatGPT using images and snapshots. Additionally, if you're working on a file and need feedback or new eyes on it, you can just send the entire file to ChatGPT. There are still limits on the number of files you can upload as a free user, but it's better than not having the option at all.

In another previous iteration, ChatGPT released what they called "Custom GPTs." These were LLMs that were trained to do a particular thing really well. For a few months, using these custom GPTs was locked behind a paywall, but the company's most recent update also made these available for free users.

There are many custom GPTs to check out, from marketing-based models to those that help with writing code in a particular language. Unfortunately, the option to build your own custom GPT is still locked behind a paywall, so you'll have to make do with what's already on offer.

Claude: Larger Context Window, API Tool System, and System Prompts

Not to be outdone, Anthropic's Claude has also gotten some shiny new toys for free users to play with. The base response system is much better, using 200,000 tokens as opposed to the previous 100,000. The doubled token size means Claude can reliably analyze as much as 150 pages of text. Claude has always been good at analyzing data, and this addition makes it easier to deal with much larger documents. This might even make writing a novel with AI that much easier.

The API tool system has been on developer wish lists for some time. API tools make it easier to tie Claude into something like a database, letting the AI take its own actions on the data there. It's important to note that these tools are for developers to define, since Anthropic doesn't provide user tools.

Developers also have free access to system prompts, which allow them to structure Claude's answers in a particular way. This could benefit you if you want to tailor Claude's personality into something different or if you're trying to reduce the extraneous information Claude gives you included in a response.

Anthropic have also noted that this version of Claude has a much lower hallucination rate than the previous one. While AI hallucinations will always be a problem, it's a step in the right direction to reduce the incidence of AI making up "facts."

Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic seems to be tailoring its free-use tier to attract more developers to use Claude. Only time will tell if they see any rewards from these improvements offered on the free tier.

Perplexity's Pages Give Users Ready-Made Content

While AI can develop content from scratch, Perplexity AI has taken things a step further with its Pages offering. The tool allows users to put together a fully featured page and host it for anyone interested in the topic to see. Instead of asking ChatGPT or Claude to write content you need to format, Perplexity does everything for you, all for free.

While this is a huge step towards making it easy to share information, there's still a massive question about who this particular tool is for. The tool makes pages, but access to those pages is limited to other Perplexity users. And by users, we mean every user, not just the ones you shared the link with.

Despite the drawbacks, it's still a pretty neat tool if you're working on a research project and want a quick mockup to show someone else. On the plus side, the tool includes all the online references it finds to generate the page, limiting the incidence of hallucinations. The tool won't be replacing Wikipedia anytime soon as a reference site, but it's pretty impressive for something that free users get to play with.

Free AI Offerings Are Getting Better

With each iteration, free AI is getting more usable and powerful. Even if you might be using a model slightly older than the current one, you're still getting access to other tools that make the LLM more efficient at what you want it to do. Tools like Perplexity's Pages is a great way to make generated information more accessible to read and digest. Whether it's ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, these free AI tools are useful in different ways and to different people. Maybe one of these tools could help you with one of your projects.