Are all AI chatbots the same? Absolutely not. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses that affect how and whether you should use them. We’ve been testing AI chatbots since their inception, cutting through the hype and assessing what they can really do. On a basic level, they can help you find information, but they can also create images and videos, generate comprehensive research reports, and process files. Furthermore, you can also have conversations with them. ChatGPT is our Editors’ Choice winner for the category because it provides the most accurate and detailed answers out of all the chatbots we’ve tested. However, the field is rapidly evolving, and lots of other options stand out for various reasons. Read on for all of our top picks, followed by what you need to know before choosing the best AI chatbot for your needs.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
EDITORS’ NOTE
October 27, 2025: With this update, we added Perplexity to our lineup of recommended AI chatbots. We have vetted the rest of our existing picks for currency and availability.
- More relevant responses than competitors
- Excellent sourcing of up-to-date information
- Impressive deep research and writing skills
- Best-in-class image generation and recognition
- Genuinely useful file processing
- Expensive
- Occasionally incorrect responses
ChatGPT, which has almost become synonymous with AI, runs on OpenAI’s powerful 5-series of LLMs. It produces incredibly comprehensive responses with a friendly attitude. From creative writing to deep research, ChatGPT excels at providing you with a foundation of content to build upon and shape as you see fit. It’s especially adept at generating images and providing sources for information in a straightforward way. Sora 2 is quite impressive, but Atlas needs work.
Choose ChatGPT if you want to experience the best that a chatbot has to offer. It’s easy to use, and you can do plenty for free.
AI Model
GPT-5 and GPT-5 Thinking
Learn More
ChatGPT Review
- Best-in-class value
- Capable of complex reasoning, file processing, and web search
- Helpful, robust integrations with other Google apps
- Paid version includes 2TB of Google One storage
- Standout image editing and video generation with audio
- Occasionally incorrect responses
- Inconvenient deep research sourcing
- Unimpressive image generation
Gemini offers the strongest value of all the AI chatbots we’ve tested. It generally performs well with complex reasoning, file processing, and web search tasks. Its video generation engine can create accompanying audio, while Nano Banana excels at editing images. An impressive suite of useful integrations across pretty much every Workspace app and 2TB (or more) of cloud storage for premium users round out the experience.
If you already rely on Google apps such as Docs, Drive, Gmail, and Sheets, Gemini is the chatbot you should use. Its rich integrations make everything from generating emails to curating playlists as simple as clicking a button.
AI Model
2.0 Flash and 2.5 Pro
Learn More
Google Gemini Review
- Conversational voice interaction with a Think Deeper research option
- Powerful desktop, mobile, and web apps
- Generates code, knowledge answers, images, and text
- Summarizes up-to-date web information
- Includes links to sources
- A lot of functionality is free
- Some responses are slow
- Underwhelming computer control via the Windows app
Copilot uses powerful LLMs from OpenAI and blends them with Bing web-scraping data for up-to-date responses to your prompts. It’s available via mobile apps, on the web, and within Windows. For an extra subscription fee, Copilot also works inside Microsoft 365 apps, suggesting edits or formulas and even generating illustrated presentations based on your text prompts.
Choose Copilot if you want to leverage AI across the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s an especially good option if you primarily use the Edge web browser and the Microsoft 365 suite.
AI Model
GPT-4
Learn More
Microsoft Copilot Review
- Top-notch web search abilities
- Slick user interface
- Variety of models to choose from
- Competent creative writing, file processing, image generation, and voice chat capabilities
- Not clear which models it uses for media generation
- Unimpressive deep research
Although Perplexity brands itself as an “answer engine” rather than an AI chatbot, it has all the features we expect from one, including complex reasoning, deep research, file processing, image recognition, media generation, and more. It’s less conversational than other chatbots on this list, but it excels at web search, thanks to generally accurate responses and an excellent user interface. Meanwhile, Perplexity’s Comet web browser bakes AI right in.
If you’re less interested in having conversations with AI but still want a better tool for answering questions than Google, Perplexity is worth a look.
AI Model
Sonar and Third-Party Models
Learn More
Perplexity Review
- Admirable stance on data collection and privacy
- Intuitive design
- Proficient complex reasoning, creative writing, file processing, and web search abilities
- Intriguing build-your-own-app feature
- Missing features such as image and video generation
- Less robust deep research versus competitors
- Occasionally incorrect responses
Claude offers a host of unusual integrations, but its defining attribute comes down to how it handles your data. By default, Claude encrypts your personal information and doesn’t use it to train its models. Many competitors do. In general, it deletes your conversation history within a month, too. In a sense, Claude is the opposite of DeepSeek, which allegedly funnels your data to the CCP.
Claude is a great fit if you are interested in trying out AI but have privacy concerns. Many developers find Claude useful for its coding capabilities, but we did not evaluate it for that use case.
AI Model
Opus 4 and Sonnet 4
Best for NSFW Features
Grok
- Unique features, such as virtual companions and X searches
- Good at complex reasoning, file processing, and web searches
- NSFW content, if that’s your thing
- Expensive
- Lackluster image and video generation
- Limited research and sourcing abilities
- Occasionally incorrect responses
Grok focuses on NSFW features much more than competitors, offering adult image and video generation tools and datable companions. It’s also loose in its moderation, meaning you can chat about a taboo subject or get a neutral evaluation of a hot topic. Grok performs competently at complex reasoning, file processing, and searching the web.
Grok is worth a try if you’re more interested in a chatbot’s unique (or adult) features than its deep research capabilities or variety of integrations. If you want answers to questions to consider sources from X, Grok does that, too. Just prepare to pay a bit more to use it than alternatives.
AI Model
Grok 3 and Grok 4
Get Our Best Stories!
All the Latest Tech, Tested by Our Experts
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
The Best AI Chatbots for 2025
Compare Specs
Buying Guide: The Best AI Chatbots for 2025
How We Choose the Best AI Chatbots
To test AI chatbots, we give each a series of prompts and compare their answers against each other, looking for accuracy, consistency, complexity, and depth. We also look at each chatbot’s core features, such as whether it can create tables of data, provide citations, summarize information, and so forth. As AI technology advances, we adjust our methods of evaluation accordingly.
There are pitfalls to this approach that are worth bearing in mind. For one, it’s impossible to fully vet the scope of an AI chatbot. One person might have a niche use case related to their work, while another might have zero use for that same functionality. It would require an army of experts in every field to fully evaluate these tools, and even then, what works well one day might not the next after an update.
That said, we noticed some clear differences in testing. After spending significant time with each one, you are likely to form an opinion on which AI chatbots are best, just as we have.
5 Ways to Get More Out of Your ChatGPT Conversations
How Much Do AI Chatbots Cost?
All the chatbots we tested have free versions. Paid plans start around $20 per month, which has become the standard for a premium chatbot subscription. Most chatbot features are available for free, albeit with usage limits, but you need to pay extra for some features, such as if you want Copilot’s or Gemini’s integrations across their respective app ecosystems.
What’s the Difference Between a Chatbot and a Large Language Model?
‘Chatbot’ is just an umbrella term that encompasses services based on interactions with large language models. It can apply to a customer service answer bot with limited responses or a more sophisticated tool like ChatGPT.
We specifically test chatbots that rely on large language models. These models train on vast quantities of data to “understand” patterns in information and respond to prompts. Answers aren’t canned or predetermined; chatbots generate unique responses for each conversation.
Are AI Chatbots Conscious?
Although you can chat with an AI chatbot like you would a person, and though some think chatbots are conscious, an AI chatbot can’t actually think or feel like a human. An AI chatbot is like a video game character with different dialogue options, except that chatbots have an infinite number of options you can choose between. Our point is that chatbots are merely complicated prompt-response machines and not sentient in any way. So, you can’t have real relationships with them, nor can they truly be your friend or therapist.
Where Can I Learn More About AI?
You can query Google or any of the chatbots on this list to find information about how AI (or AI chatbots) works, but a number of more formal resources are available online for you to check out. Ironically, AI chatbots themselves aren’t great at explaining how they work, so make sure you verify what they tell you with other sources.
Recommended by Our Editors
Is Alexa or Siri an AI Chatbot?
We don’t consider Alexa or Siri AI chatbots. However, these virtual assistants continue to receive more and more AI functionality, so that might change. Apple has promised a ‘conversational Siri’ for a while now, which allegedly will turn Siri into something that more closely resembles a chatbot. Alexa+ seems promising, too.
How Can You Tell if Something Is Generated by an AI Chatbot?
The unfortunate answer here is that often, you simply cannot. Many online services attempt to analyze text to determine if it was generated by AI, but they are imperfect. Some quirks, such as a heavy reliance on em dashes, are hallmarks of AI generation, but just seeing an em dash isn’t enough to tell if something is AI-generated. In general, we recommend sticking with sources you trust to avoid AI-generated content.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
