AI Assistants
Free tiers in this category are unusually good: all five products here have one, and for occasional use several are sufficient. What separates them is where the ceiling sits: message limits, which model you get, and whether the useful features are behind the paywall.
Best for varied work that doesn't live inside one vendor's office apps
ChatGPT is OpenAI's AI assistant for people whose work spans writing, research, files, images and code. Its Work mode takes a task with a defined result and returns a document, spreadsheet, presentation or PDF to review.
Free plan
paid from $8/mo
Best for people whose mail, calendar and files already live in Google's apps
Gemini is Google's AI assistant for people whose email, calendar and files are already in Google's apps. It works with Gmail, Calendar and Drive inside a chat, and paid Google AI plans bundle it with Google One storage.
Free plan
paid from $4.99/mo
Best for research where every claim needs a source you can open and check
Perplexity is an AI answer engine for people who need to check where facts come from. It searches the web in real time and cites its sources in every answer, and its Research mode writes longer sourced reports.
Free plan
paid from $16.67/mo
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AI Assistants by the numbers
$8/mo
Median starting price
0%
Offer a free trial
100%
Have a free plan
3
Products tracked
Computed from the published pricing of the 3 AI Assistants products in this list. Pricing last checked against vendor pages October 3, 2026.
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