AI Lineup
ChatGPT
by OpenAI
The tool that started the conversation, and still one of the best for almost anything you ask it to do.
Free + PaidChatbotMultimodal
Last checked: 17 August 2026
The details
- Context Window
- 128,000 tokens — roughly an entire book's worth of conversation at once
- Cost
- Free tier available · Paid plans for more usage.
- Open Source?
- No — proprietary (OpenAI keeps this to themselves)
- Input / Output
- TextImages inVoiceImage creationFiles
Best for
- General writing & editing
- Coding help
- Creating images (DALL·E)
- Voice conversations
- Explaining concepts
Kevin’s take
“The one everyone's heard of. An excellent all-rounder. The free tier is enough to get started — I used it for a year before I paid for anything.”
— Kevin, formerly of IT Support
Privacy snapshot
Use With CautionPrivacy risk: Medium
General-purpose AI assistant by OpenAI. Text generation, conversation, code help, image generation, and more.
See what ChatGPT does with your data →Related reading
From the AI Glossary
- ChatbotAny AI tool you interact with through a conversation-style interface — you type something, it types back. ChatGPT is a chatbot. So is Claude, Gemini, and Grok. The word has been around much longer than modern AI — early chatbots followed simple rules and were mostly terrible. Today's chatbots are powered by large language models, which makes them vastly more capable.
- OpenAIThe company behind ChatGPT, and one of the most influential names in AI. It started as a research lab and became a household word almost overnight when ChatGPT launched in late 2022. It builds the GPT family of models and has a close, much-discussed relationship with Microsoft. When people picture "an AI company," OpenAI is often the one they have in mind.
- TokenA token is a small chunk of text an AI model reads and writes: sometimes a whole short word, sometimes part of a longer one, plus spaces and punctuation. In English, a useful rule of thumb is that one token is about three-quarters of a word. Tools use token counts to size a conversation's memory, price developer API usage, and, in some products, decide when you've hit a limit. When ChatGPT or another chatbot acts like you've "run out," the wall may be a token limit, a separate plan usage cap, or a feature that burns credits. The words on screen do not always match the engineering term.
From the Unspun Blog
- You shouldn't have to learn Spark vs Chat vs Cowork to send an emailAI apps keep asking ordinary people to choose between Spark, Daily Brief, Chat, Work, and Cowork. The app should do that homework.
- When is my kid allowed to use AI on homework?A school traffic-light rule turns AI homework fights into one sentence: green means allowed, red means none, yellow means limited help.
- Ads just showed up in ChatGPT — how to tell an answer from a pitchChatGPT ads are live on Free and Go in 31 European markets. The useful move is reading the label before treating a pitch as advice.
- ChatGPT for Teens is live — and some under-18 accounts are already in itOpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens. The useful story for families is what changed by default, and which parental controls still require setup.
Knowing the tool is just the start.
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