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Generative AI (GenAI) tools produce original text and image content from user prompts by learning from the training data of massive AI models, datasets, and neural networks. With a number of generative AI apps available to consumers today, you have more options than ever before to find the right one for your specific needs—but distinguishing from among so many solutions can be a challenge. To help, we evaluated the top GenAI tools for a range of common use cases and compared them on features and price. Whether you’re looking to enhance your writing, create stunning visuals, or generate engaging videos, here are our picks for the 13 best GenAi apps and tools on the market in 2024:
- Gemini: Best for Google Platforms
- Pi: Best for Emotionally-Intelligent Conversations
- Claude AI: Best for Processing Long and Complex Documents
- ChatGPT: Best for Diverse Applications Across Industries
- Meta AI: Best for Social Media Content Creation
- BLOOM: Best for AI Text Continuation
- Cohere: Best for Building Production-Ready AI Enterprise Applications
- Microsoft Copilot: Best for Microsoft Environments
- Jasper AI: Best for Marketing Content Generation
- Synthesia: Best for AI-Powered Video Creation and Avatars
- Midjourney: Best for Advanced AI Image Editing and Generation
- DALL-E 3: Best for Accessible High-Quality Image Generation
- GitHub Copilot: Best for Assistive Coding
Best Generative AI Tools Comparison
The table below presents an overview of generative AI apps for different purposes. It gives you an idea of what these artificial intelligence (AI) tools can do, whether a free version is available, and how much the paid versions cost.
| GenAI Tool | Core Features | Free Version | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini | • Conversational AI • AI assistant • Multimodal capabilities |
✔ | Starts at $19.99 per user, per month |
| Pi | • Personal chatbot • Cross-platform availability • Voice-to-text |
✔ | Completely free |
| Claude AI | • Conversational AI • Code generation • Large context window |
✔ | Starts at $20 per user, per month |
| ChatGPT | • Conversational AI • Custom GPTs • Vision analysis |
✔ | Starts at $20 per user, per month |
| Meta AI | • Conversational AI • Image generation • Personalized recommendations |
✔ | Completely free |
| BLOOM | • Advanced text generation • Text completion • Multilingual LLMs |
✔ | Completely free |
| Cohere | • Document parsing • Summarization • Text classification |
✔ | Starts at $0.50 per million tokens |
| Microsoft Copilot | • AI assistant • Conversational AI • Image generation |
✔ | Starts at $20 per user, per month |
| Jasper AI | • AI-written content • Custom brand voices • Browser extensions |
✘ | Starts at $39 per seat, per month |
| Synthesia | • AI video creation • Avatar builder • Voice cloning |
✔ | Starts at $29 per month for one editor and three guests |
| Midjourney | • Image generation • Image prompts • Image blending |
✘ | Starts at $10 per user, per month |
| DALL-E 3 | • Image generation • Complex text prompt interpretation • Versatile artistic styles |
✔ | Starts at $20 per user, per month |
| GitHub Copilot | • Real-time code suggestions • Code completion • Copilot Chat |
✘ | Starts at $10 per user, per month |
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Gemini
Best for Google Platforms
Google’s Gemini is a generative AI tool designed to supercharge productivity and creativity, particularly for individuals and businesses operating within the Google ecosystem. It integrates with Google Workspace applications, including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Gmail. It can also assist in extracting specific information from vast amounts of data at digital speeds.
This GenAI tool offers writing assistance, summarization, data analysis, and visual creation. It can help you write email drafts and suggest ideas for overcoming creative blocks. It can also summarize content from Google Docs, create tables and formulas on Google Sheets, and generate visuals for Google Slides presentations. Being multimodal, Gemini can operate across and combine different types of information, including text, code, audio, image, and video.
However, you must have a Google Workspace account to access this AI tool, which means it may not be the best option if you’re a casual user or want a standalone solution. Usage of Gemini is also limited to 1,000 interactions per month.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Multimodal capabilities | Monthly usage limits |
| Available in more than 35 languages | Requires a Google Workspace account |
Pricing
- Free version
- Gemini Advanced costs $19.99 per user, per month
- Gemini Business costs $24 per user, per month
- Gemini Enterprise costs $36 per user, per month
Features
- AI assistance in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Meet
- Advanced meetings with translated captions in more than 15 languages
- Edit and run Python code
- Enterprise-grade security
- Available in over 35 languages
Pi
Best for Emotionally-Intelligent Conversations
Inflection’s Pi is a personal chatbot with a focus on providing emotional support and advice, making it distinct from traditional AI models. Its best feature is its empathetic design that engages you in meaningful conversations, offering support for emotional well-being. For instance, it suggests activities like jogging or meditation when you express sadness or anger.
Pi interprets and responds to emotions in natural and flowing conversations, making interactions more human-like and relatable. You can ask questions, ask for advice, or simply have a friendly chat with this AI tool. Although Inflection doesn’t prioritize enterprise use cases for Pi like other generative AI companies, the tool can still give concise and relevant information on a wide range of topics.
While Pi excels at building engaging conversations, it is not built for handling complex business or technical queries. The vendor also discontinued support for Pi AI on Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, limiting the ways you can interact with the generative AI tool.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Excels in human-like conversations | Not designed for more complex business or technical queries |
| Available via web, iOS, Android, and desktop apps | No longer accessible on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp |
Pricing
- Free to use
Features
- High emotional intelligence
- Voice command processing
- Real-time web search
- Cross-platform availability
- Creative text generation
Claude AI
Best for Processing Long and Complex Documents
Claude AI, developed by Anthropic, is a GenAI tool that can interpret extensive messages thanks to its large context window. It can process up to 200,000 words at once, allowing it to have extended conversations while maintaining context. You can use the tool to summarize long and complex files, like technical documentations or books, to get quick insights. Claude can also analyze and describe uploaded images, including handwritten notes and photographs, as well as edit text, answer questions, and write code.
This conversational AI has a strong focus on safety and AI ethics with its built-in jailbreak resistance and misuse prevention to mitigate risks. In addition, it has robust security features, is SOC II Type 2 certified, and has HIPAA compliance options. Together, all these features promote responsible generative AI use, too.
It is worth noting, though, that Claude is unable to generate images and can’t connect to the Internet to give the most up-to-date information.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Larger context window than many competitors, including ChatGPT | Unable to generate image content |
| Built-in jailbreak resistance and misuse prevention features | No access to real-time information from the Internet |
Pricing
- Free version
- Pro costs $20 per user, per month
- Team costs $30 per user, per month; five member minimum
Features
- Advanced reasoning
- Vision analysis
- Code generation
- Large context window
- Jailbreak resistance and misuse prevention features
ChatGPT
Best for Diverse Applications Across Industries
ChatGPT from OpenAI is one of the most popular generative AI tools that employs advanced natural language processing (NLP) to engage in conversational interactions on a broad range of topics. This tool can assist in coding, write content, and answer questions comprehensively. It has a large model size, boosting its ability to generate coherent and nuanced responses.
ChatGPT’s latest version, GPT-4, connects with you in more dynamic and context-aware conversations. It also has an improved capacity for handling complex queries and producing detailed outputs, making it versatile for various applications, from creative writing to technical problem-solving. Additionally, this version can now process both text and images, allowing you to input visual data and receive detailed responses. It can also generate images through DALL-E 3.
However, despite these advancements, ChatGPT has significant drawbacks, like usage restrictions even on paid plans. The tool limits the number of interactions and the volume of data processed, impacting its effectiveness in high-demand scenarios.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Presentation-ready charts and tables | Strict usage limits even for paid plans |
| Custom data retention | Occasionally responds to harmful instructions or exhibits biased behavior |
Pricing
- Free version
- Plus costs $20 per user, per month
- Team costs $30 per user, per month
- Custom pricing for Enterprise plan
Features
- Supports more than 50 languages
- Presentation-ready charts and tables in expandable views
- Data analysis, file uploads, and vision analysis
- Conversational AI
- Custom GPTs
Meta AI
Best for Social Media Content Creation
Meta AI is a generative AI assistant primarily used within Meta’s own platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It can engage in conversations, answer questions, generate images, and provide personalized recommendations. This tool is particularly useful for social media content creation due to its ability to produce highly-detailed, tailored images that can capture attention. It allows you to envision different visual styles to connect with audiences on Meta platforms.
Recently upgraded to use the Llama 3.1 model, Meta AI now has notable improvements over previous versions. This GenAI tool has deeper understanding and NLP generation for a variety of tasks and applications. It also has better reasoning for multilingual dialogue and can maintain context over longer text passages.
While Meta AI has sophisticated capabilities, some of its features are currently limited to users in Canada and the U.S.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Generates high-quality images from text prompts | Image generation feature only available in the US and Canada |
| Provides suggestions to refine visual outputs | Privacy concerns with AI being integrated into social media platforms |
Pricing
- Free to use
Features
- Generates high-quality images and animations as you type
- Seamless integration with Meta platforms
- Web access
- Personalized recommendations and how-to advice
- Virtual assistant capabilities
BLOOM
Best for AI Text Continuation
BLOOM is an open-source autoregressive large language model (LLM) developed by Hugging Face and BigScience. With 176 billion parameters, this multilingual LLM generates human-like text in 59 different languages, making it suitable for text completion, summarization, and translation for global audiences.
What sets this AI tool apart from other multilingual LLMs is its support for often underrepresented languages, like Arabic, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Swahili, Tamil, Hindi, and Yoruba. Its open-access design allows researchers and developers to modify the model, fostering collaboration and innovation in the AI community.
However, BLOOM is limited to text generation and cannot produce images, restricting its use in multimodal scenarios.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Open-source access to multilingual LLMs | No image generation |
| Open-access design promotes collaboration and innovation | Content inaccuracies in some non-English languages |
Pricing
- Free for up to 30,000 input characters per month via Inference API
Features
- Advanced text generation with 176 billion parameters
- Trained in 46 different languages and 13 programming languages
- Open access
- Text completion and summarization
- Language translation
Cohere
Best for Building Production-Ready AI Enterprise Applications
Cohere is an enterprise AI platform for building production-ready applications. Its advanced NLP facilitates the creation of intelligent chatbot and human-like text, and key features include text generation, classification, and embedding. It also has an API Request Builder that enables developers to construct API requests without extensive coding for quick experimentation and implementation.
Cohere allows you to implement language AI into your enterprise products and build agents that connect to external services, like search engines, APIs, and databases. It can summarize long documents with citations. The platform’s flexible APIs allow for seamless integration with existing systems and workflows, accelerating deployment.
Despite these capabilities, Cohere occasionally produces errors in text classification. If you need reliable accuracy, it might not be the best solution.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Flexible APIs for easy integration | Occasional text classification inaccuracy |
| Open source software integrations | Priced higher than competitors |
Pricing
- Free Playground version
- Command R+ scalable LLM: $3 per million tokens input, $15 per million tokens output
- Command R for retrieval-augmented generation: $0.50 per million tokens input, $1.50 per million tokens output
- Fine-tuned Command R: $2 per million tokens input, $4 per million tokens output, $8 per million tokens training
Features
- Retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
- Document parsing and summarization
- Text classification
- Embedding
- Fine-tuning
Microsoft Copilot
Best for Microsoft Environments
Microsoft Copilot is a generative AI tool for boosting productivity and streamlining workflows in business environments. It is especially beneficial for Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. This tool can aid you in drafting emails, rewriting documents, summarizing web page content, and generating images.
Copilot inherits the security in Microsoft 365, including compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and European Union (EU) Data Boundary. Additionally, it blocks harmful content, detects protected material, and stops prompt injections or jailbreak attacks.
While powerful, Copilot can be cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations. Businesses must first purchase a Microsoft 365 plan, then pay an additional fee to use Copilot itself.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Seamless integration with Microsoft applications | License for a Microsoft 365 plan required for business use |
| Enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance | Some features, like Copilot for Excel, are only available in English |
Pricing
- Copilot in Edge browser is free for personal use
- Microsoft Copilot Pro costs $20 per user, per month
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 costs $30 per user, per month for businesses and requires a separate Microsoft 365 license
Features
- Integration with Microsoft applications
- Enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance
- Image generation
- Summarization
- Data analysis and visualization
Jasper AI
Best for Marketing Content Generation
Jasper AI is a GenAI tool that assists marketers and writers in creating blog posts, social media updates, and marketing copy. It enables businesses to maintain a consistent brand voice for optimized content strategies.
This AI tool has more than 50 templates for diverse content types and an AI Image Generator for producing high-resolution visual outputs. In addition, Jasper AI’s performance analytics show engagement metrics, which can be valuable for improving content. It also supports over 25 languages, making it suitable for global campaigns.
However, this AI tool doesn’t have a free version, which may deter some individual marketers and small teams.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Text and image generation for marketing | No free plan |
| Over 50 templates for different use cases | Generated text requires heavy editing |
Pricing
- Creator costs $39 per seat, per month
- Pro costs $59 per seat, per month
- Custom pricing for Business plan
Features
- Writes high-quality social media captions at scale
- Composes long-form written content for social posts or video scripts
- Custom brand voices and style guides
- Over 50 templates for various use cases
- Chrome and Edge extensions
Synthesia
Best for AI-Powered Video Creation and Avatars
Synthesia is an AI-powered video creation platform that enables you to craft high-quality professional videos for corporate communication, training, and marketing. It eliminates the need for expensive equipment or studio setups, making video creation affordable.
The platform offers an extensive library of AI avatars and video templates, which can be tailored to fit different branding needs. You can also create your own avatar and clone your voice. Synthesia supports more than 130 languages and allows you to share or embed your videos into various platforms.
While this tool excels in video creation, its AI-generated voices don’t always sync with the videos, affecting the naturalness of the avatars’ speech.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| More than 140 AI avatars | Avatar voice doesn’t always sync with videos |
| Supports over 130 languages | Poor customer support quality |
Pricing
- Free for up to three minutes of video per month
- Starter costs $29 per month for one editor and three guests
- Creator costs $89 per month for one editor and five guests
- Custom pricing for Enterprise plan
Features
- Avatar builder
- Voice cloning
- More than 140 AI avatars
- Video templates
- More than 130 languages
Midjourney
Best for Advanced AI Image Editing and Generation
Midjourney is an advanced AI tool renowned for its ability to generate high-resolution images from image or text prompts. Accessible through both Discord and its dedicated web platform, this AI tool allows you to produce customized images using parameters like aspect ratios and styles. You can also blend multiple images together and add quirky and offbeat qualities to your output to expand creative possibilities with Midjourney.
This AI image generation tool has a stealth mode that prevents your images from being visible to others on the Midjourney website. It also promotes a vibrant community where users can share prompts and collaborate, further enriching the creative experience.
On the downside, Midjourney doesn’t have a free plan or trial, which may impact users hesitant to commit to the tool without exploring its capabilities.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fosters collaboration | No free version or free trial |
| Stealth mode keeps generated images private on the Midjourney website | Limited customer support |
Pricing
- Basic costs $10 per user, per month
- Standard costs $30 per user, per month
- Pro costs $60 per user, per month
- Mega costs $120 per user, per month
Features
- Image generation
- Image prompts
- Image blending
- Midjourney Bot
- Shared spaces to collaborate with others
DALL-E 3
Best for Accessible High-Quality Image Generation
OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 is a generative AI tool that creates high-quality digital images from text descriptions. It is the latest model in the DALL-E series and brings significant improvements over its predecessor in terms of image quality and prompt understanding.
Built into ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 makes image generation accessible to everyone, even free users. It can produce images in diverse artistic styles and adjust its generated images according to additional prompts. This AI tool can interpret simple prompts into detailed paragraphs to produce highly-specific images. It also generates images in various sizes and orientations.
Despite these solid features, DALL-E 3 occasionally struggles with accurately rendering small details, like numbers and letters, within the image outputs.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Built natively into ChatGPT, increasing accessibility | Occasional errors in image details, particularly in letters or numbers |
| Focuses on safety, declines image requests that might promote misinformation or propaganda | DALL-E 3 API is required for integration into applications |
Pricing
DALL-E 3 is included in the following ChatGPT plans:
- Free
- Plus ($20 per user, per month)
- Team ($30 per user, per month)
- Enterprise (custom pricing)
Features
- Advanced image generation
- Accurately interprets complex text prompts
- Versatile artistic styles
- Creates images in different sizes and orientations
- Prevents the generation of harmful or biased content
GitHub Copilot
Best for Assistive Coding
GitHub Copilot is a specialized GenAI tool for context-aware coding assistance throughout the software development lifecycle. It aids developers through code completion, chat assistance, and code explanation and works well with popular integrated development environments (IDEs), like Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs, offering developers real-time suggestions as they code.
GitHub Copilot can generate complete blocks of code, continue partially-typed commands, and create entire functions or classes based on the context provided. It supports multiple programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, and C++, making it suitable for diverse development tasks.
However, GitHub Copilot may write flawed code if the context is insufficient or unclear. Developer insight is necessary to check code quality and ensure security.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Block suggestions matching public code to prevent copyright issues | May generate inaccurate code suggestions if prompt is not well-defined |
| Real-time code suggestions | No free version |
Pricing
- GitHub Copilot Individual costs $10 per user, per month
- GitHub Copilot Business costs $19 per user, per month
- GitHub Copilot Enterprise costs $39 per user, per month
Features
- Real-time code suggestions
- Code completion
- Copilot Chat
- Copilot in the CLI
- AI-generated pull request summaries
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the Real-World Generative AI Applications?
Generative AI is used in a wide range of applications, including the following:
- Written content creation
- Image and digital art creation
- Voice generation
- Language translation
- Text summarization
- Code generation
- Synthetic data creation
What Industries can Benefit From Generative AI Tools?
Many industries can benefit from using generative AI apps and tools. Some of the most common include the following:
- Education: The technology can aid in developing learning materials and summarizing lengthy academic papers and research materials.
- Marketing: GenAI can assist in crafting captivating advertising campaigns and content.
- Software Development: Developers can refine coding processes through assistive coding from generative AI tools.
- Legal: Generative AI can summarize extensive legal documents.
- Entertainment: GenAI tools can aid in producing scripts, audio content, and visual effects.
Should Your Company Use Generative AI Tools?
While generative AI tools can introduce substantial advantages to your business, only you can answer whether your company should use them or not. It all boils down to your business needs and your capacity to implement these tools responsibly. If you decide to use generative AI apps, craft a meticulous plan, write a comprehensive AI policy, and–most importantly–treat the AI tools as supportive resources and not a replacement for humans. Human oversight is paramount in employing generative AI.
Bottom Line: Generative AI Tools can Optimize Your Business Processes
Generative AI tools optimize your business processes by boosting productivity, inspiring creativity, and generating novel content. There are countless generative AI apps to help you out, as more and more AI companies are developing new tools every day to make task completion easier, faster, and less stressful.
We created this guide and selected top generative AI tools in different fields to help you determine which ones can elevate your current business processes and add value to your organization. As you explore GenAI tools, consider starting with free versions or trial periods to assess their functionality and compatibility with your business operations. Choosing the right generative AI tool must be a thoughtful process, as the wrong choice of tools can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities for improvement.
Discover our recommended training courses that will enrich your GenAI skills by reading our article on the best generative AI certifications.