I examined the highest 14 AI chatbots for entrepreneurs [data, prompts, use cases]

I bear in mind when ChatGPT first launched. Your entire advertising and marketing group was cut up on whether or not they need to use AI chatbots or not. Posts about ChatGPT would get a whole lot of feedback, with one aspect debating the comfort of AI and the opposite arguing that AI can by no means match human creativity.

Whereas the controversy continues to be ongoing, AI chatbots are already all over the place. I’m seeing entrepreneurs counting on customized bots for social media, enterprises integrating voice assistants, and customer support groups scaling operations with AI.

As somebody who has labored in each automation and advertising and marketing, I’d say the shift to AI chatbots is right here. And it’s right here to remain.

Entrepreneurs now have tons of stable chatbot choices that may maintain conversations virtually as naturally as a human.

On this publish, I’ll stroll you thru the highest 14 chatbots for entrepreneurs, how I examined them, and which of them it is best to contemplate on your advertising and marketing workflow. I’ll additionally provide the precise prompts I used and the outcomes so you understand what to anticipate.

Desk of Contents

What’s an AI chatbot?

An AI chatbot is a conversational program that makes use of machine studying (ML) and pure language processing (NLP) to grasp what you’re saying to it and offer you human-like solutions. It’s educated on a ton of knowledge to grasp patterns and phrase associations, permitting it to grasp advanced queries. Moreover, an AI chatbot learns from earlier conversations, progressively enhancing its responses over time.

Seems like quite a bit? Let me break it down.

Right here’s what occurs below the hood whenever you ship a immediate to an AI chatbot:

Enter processing. Your immediate is damaged down into tokens (phrases, phrases, and even components of a phrase).
Context mapping. The mannequin tries to construct relationships between phrases and their positions. This helps the mannequin differentiate between “Sarah caught the bear” versus “The bear caught Sarah” — two very totally different issues to have.
Self-attention. Now, it’s time to truly perceive intent. The mannequin identifies the important thing entities in your message and, primarily based on earlier coaching information, understands how they relate to one another.
Response. The mannequin begins forming the output choices. This can be a prediction system the place the mannequin predicts the following most certainly phrase primarily based on earlier patterns.
Suggestions loop. As the ultimate step, the chatbot runs the response candidates by way of totally different security filters and qc. Every response is scored, and one of the best one is delivered because the output.

All of this occurs within the seconds/minutes you wait after sending the immediate. Whereas I’ve described how a typical AI chatbot works, every mannequin may implement the structure in a different way. The tip purpose, although? Serving to clear up enterprise (or private) issues quicker and extra reliably.

Conversational AI vs. Chatbots

Chatbots and conversational AI are intently associated, however differ of their scope and capabilities.

Conversational AI refers to any expertise that may speak to people, perceive sentiment, and reply questions. It may be a chatbot, AI agent, or different AI-generated software.

AI chatbots are a subset of conversational AI, however not all chatbots use conversational AI. Some chatbots are purely rule-based, which depend on easy guidelines and determination bushes to find out one of the best plan of action.

Rule-based chatbots can solely deal with particular, anticipated inputs. I’m certain you’ve interacted with lots of them within the pre-ChatGPT period. Ask them one thing outdoors their script, they usually’ll both offer you a imprecise reply or redirect you to a human.

In distinction, AI chatbots perceive context and nuance, and are extra able to dealing with surprising queries.

If you would like the person to decide on between set choices with out a lot flexibility, go for rule-based chatbots to save lots of prices. Nonetheless, if you wish to ship an upgraded person expertise, I’d advocate selecting an AI chatbot.

Why use AI chatbots? 4 Use Circumstances and Advantages of Chatbots for Entrepreneurs

I’ve seen AI chatbots turn out to be considerably extra clever over the past yr. Earlier, you needed to scrape and feed a ton of knowledge to chatbots, and even then, the outputs have been usable. Chatbots couldn’t even connect with the web natively.

Nonetheless, with newer fashions and integration applied sciences like AI brokers and MCP servers, the probabilities are countless. I lately related my e-mail to my Claude account by way of MCP. Now, I can get a useful abstract of my day’s conferences and e-newsletter highlights with only a immediate.

Listed below are another methods companies can use AI chatbots.

Buyer Help

Gross sales and Advertising

Automate gross sales prospecting and market analysis.

Personalize automated outreach to your audience at scale.

Managing your gross sales pipeline by summarizing conferences, sending follow-up reminders, and so on.
Help prospects by way of each stage of the shopping for journey by offering customized and well timed info.

Writing and Modifying

Content material technique and ideation for blogs, emails, and social media posts.
Deep analysis on particular matters to create article outlines.
Model-tailored first drafts for emails and social copy.
Tweaking copy for sure audiences, platforms, and codecs.

Recruitment and HR

Shortlist potential candidates primarily based on resume energy.
Reply frequent questions on open positions or firm insurance policies.
Schedule interviews and conferences with out countless back-and-forth emails.

The examples listed below are simply the tip of the iceberg. Folks have used chatbots for remedy, journey planning, ordering meals, and a lot extra. In accordance with our State of AI report, 39% of entrepreneurs use chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot to create content material and arrange analysis.

Thus, AI chatbots can:

Save time, cut back worker burnout, and allow them to give attention to strategic duties as a substitute of grunt work.
Scale back the price of labor and generate outputs quicker.
Conduct intensive information crunching and evaluation extra successfully.
Provide help to scale your online business with out growing headcount.

Backside line? You’ll be able to simply customise AI chatbots to suit virtually any organizational want.

What makes an AI chatbot good?

Listed below are some options I search for when experimenting with AI chatbots.

Accuracy and Reliability

AI chatbots are infamous for hallucinations, i.e, confidently making up deceptive claims. In accordance with HubSpot’s State of AI survey, 43% of entrepreneurs wrestle with AI producing inaccurate info. I’ll admit, generally I get annoyed too.

Some fashions carry out higher than others. As an illustration, reasoning fashions like OpenAI o3 and DeepSeek R1 cut back hallucination by displaying you the steps they took to reach on the conclusion. Fashions which can be educated on domain-specific datasets are way more correct in answering specialised questions.

Professional tip: Introduce guardrails to your immediate and coaching information to cut back the probabilities of hallucinations. I usually embody particular directions like “don’t make up claims,” “give supply hyperlinks and point out the web page variety of the knowledge,” and “in case you are unsure a couple of truth, simply say so.” Regardless, it is best to all the time double-check what AI spits out.

Emotional Intelligence

Keep in mind: We’re utilizing chatbots to simplify person expertise.

So, a great AI chatbot ought to:

Be capable to perceive person intent (and never get caught with typos).
Keep in mind dialog context, or on the very least, doc previous interactions and discuss with them when wanted.
Know when to escalate to a human agent.

It also needs to be capable to assess the tone and total feeling of the client’s inquiry. Is the client:

Offended? (“Why is my month-to-month fee growing?!”)
Unhappy? (“Please don’t discontinue your lavender chai latte chocolate! It’s my favourite taste. I used to drink it with my dad earlier than he handed.”)
Pleased? (“I really like, love, LOVE the brand new sneaker designs! Please inform me they arrive in pink!”)

One of the best chatbots I’ve used make me really feel heard and understood.

Kinds of Output

As an alternative of simply textual content responses, can your chatbot deal with photos and movies? With AI-generated content material on the rise, this characteristic is a large plus for chatbots.

Think about this: a buyer asks, “How do I alter this setting in your software?” A traditional chatbot would hyperlink the client to the documentation or present a text-based information. Nonetheless, a multimodal chatbot educated in your product can ship annotated screenshots or perhaps a video walkthrough.

Much less confusion, higher person expertise.

Integrations

As we transfer to an agentic period, I like to recommend selecting a chatbot that’s appropriate throughout different fashionable instruments and software program. As an illustration, your chatbot ought to be capable to sync together with your gross sales information, fetch the numbers, and spin up a dashboard to current them.

HubSpot’s CRM is constructed for this related workflow with seamless integrations throughout your tech stack, reminiscent of Claude, Zapier, and 1700+ enterprise apps.

How I Examined the Greatest AI-Powered Chatbots

Most AI-powered chatbots have roughly the identical worth prop, i.e., answering person questions like a human would. Nonetheless, I’ve discovered that some fashions excel at particular industries or duties.

If a mannequin is solely educated for code technology (GitHub Copilot), it’s going to naturally be higher than an all-purpose chatbot like ChatGPT. Equally, an AI chatbot educated in your CRM information would be capable to deal with product queries extra precisely.

Thus, I took a nuanced method to testing these chatbots. I examined every software with prompts that showcase its core strengths. I additionally added in some simple duties right here and there to assist resolve one of the best mixture on your stack.

The 14 Greatest AI Chatbots

Breeze
ChatGPT
Claude
Grok
Github Copilot
Gemini
DeepSeek
Perplexity
HubSpot Chatbot Builder
Intercom Fin AI Agent
Tidio Lyro
Drift
Zendesk AI Brokers
Chatbase

With so many stable AI chatbot choices available on the market, it may be laborious to resolve the place to begin.

That can assist you make an knowledgeable determination, I’ve compiled a listing of one of the best AI chatbots primarily based on their options, usability, and efficiency in testing.

Whether or not you’re on the lookout for a chatbot to help your online business or enhance private productiveness, there’s an choice right here for everybody.

Be aware: I’ve divided this listing into two components. The primary eight chatbots are targeted on inner enterprise and private productiveness use circumstances like producing concepts, content material creation and extra. Later, I’ll talk about consumer-facing chatbots.

1. Breeze

Get Began with Breeze for Free

Establishing a brand new chatbot is a really time-consuming course of for me. It’s not simply the preliminary coaching both. I have to constantly replace it with new buyer conversations and product options to get brand-aligned outputs.

Breeze, HubSpot’s AI chatbot, helps you skip all of those setup steps.

Breeze lives inside your CRM, so it has full context about your buyer journey, product options, gross sales pipeline, and extra. It additionally integrates unstructured communication like emails and calls to exterior information, reminiscent of purchaser intent and firm information, to present Breeze the complete image.

With a whole lot of buyer success tales, companies utilizing Breeze are seeing outcomes throughout the board. HubSpot prospects are already utilizing it to:

Breeze delivers what entrepreneurs and companies need: extra certified leads, quicker gross sales cycles, buyer retention, and satisfaction.

How I Examined Breeze

I examined Breeze by way of their “product demo” web page. Actually, I used to be anticipating a video walkthrough and possibly a primary chatbot with commonplace responses.

Nonetheless, I used to be pleasantly shocked. The demo walked me by way of virtually each little bit of the chatbot’s AI capabilities, starting from an AI avatar (Fiona) to clever demo suggestions.

In fact, this expertise set a really excessive bar for the software. So, I got down to give it the primary process: writing a follow-up e-mail for prospects.

The e-mail I acquired again was fairly good, regardless of the restricted background info. I may straight ship it with some minor tweaks and personalization.

Now, think about this executed at scale with real-time information, powered by your conversations, deal historical past, and buyer expertise. The chances are countless.

One other factor I appreciated about the entire course of was how responsive the chatbot was. She requested me clever but natural-sounding inquiries to information me by way of the gross sales course of. If there was a lull within the dialog, she gently nudged me with informal questions.

All of this confirmed how nicely the chatbot knew HubSpot’s supply, which is exactly the form of product data you’d need from an AI chatbot.

Breeze Options I Appreciated

Seamless HubSpot CRM integration.
Combines each structured (CRM) and unstructured information (e-mail) to energy their intelligence software program.
Specialised brokers for each advertising and marketing use case: content material, social media, prospecting, and customer support.

What I Didn’t Like

The free demo didn’t let me take a look at any superior options.
HubSpot-generated photos are respectable, however a number of the chatbots on this listing do a greater job.

Breeze Pricing

Get began with primary AI options like content material technology free of charge.
HubSpot Starter ($15/seat/month, billed yearly) – Starter advertising and marketing, gross sales, service, content material, and operations software program, with easy automation and Breeze intelligence.
Skilled Buyer Platform ($1,300/month, consists of 5 seats) – Consists of buyer agent performance & 3,000 month-to-month HubSpot credit.
Enterprise Buyer Platform ($4,700/month, consists of 7 seats) – Superior Breeze options + 5,000 month-to-month HubSpot Credit.

Be aware: You’ll be able to unlock Breeze Intelligence solely within the HubSpot Starter pack and Breeze Buyer agent within the Skilled plan. Credit can be utilized throughout HubSpot merchandise, together with Breeze.

Why I Advocate Breeze

For those who’re a HubSpot person, Breeze serves as a pure extension of your current tech stack. It’s the primary AI assistant that is aware of your online business in addition to you do.

Whereas I wouldn’t advocate Breeze for media creation, you should utilize it to automate your every day advertising and marketing duties. For those who’re within the means of scaling your organization, I’d extremely advocate giving it a strive.

TL;DR: It’s a breeze to combine HubSpot Breeze to your advertising and marketing workflows.

2. ChatGPT

Launched in 2022 by OpenAI, ChatGPT made headlines because the fastest-growing shopper app in historical past.

Quick ahead to in the present day, ChatGPT processes over 2.5B person queries per day. That’s roughly 1/third of Google’s 8.5B searches per day, making it a critical contender to conventional search. I’d give it a pair extra years earlier than utilizing an AI chatbot like ChatGPT turns into muscle reminiscence for customers.

So, what precisely are entrepreneurs asking ChatGPT? Nicely, numerous issues. The proper GPT prompts may help you create brand-aligned content material, polished photos, crunch marketing campaign numbers, and extra. I take advantage of ChatGPT Plus for analysis, Excel evaluation, and picture technology.

However that’s not all. The one GPT characteristic I’m most excited to check (however don’t have entry to but) is the ChatGPT agent. Whereas chatbots usually wait to be prompted, brokers can independently take and act on choices.

As an illustration, if I need the GPT agent to buy a pair of socks for me on the least expensive value, the agent can evaluate totally different websites, take a look at out coupon codes, after which share the outcomes with me. I’m already seeing GPT agent use circumstances applied throughout social media, so I can’t watch for a broader rollout. As of this writing, the ChatGPT agent is simply obtainable to Professional customers.

How I Examined ChatGPT

Let’s begin with a easy immediate. I used to be working with a shopper within the mission administration area of interest, who wished a report on how they stack up in opposition to opponents. So, I made a decision to make use of ChatGPT to reinforce my analysis. For every competitor, I prompted it to attract up a SWOT evaluation and determine profitable options that my present shopper didn’t have.

The SWOT evaluation was fairly useful. Subsequent, I wished to check GPT for picture technology. Right here, I went barely goofy, asking GPT to generate a cat picture with an indication. ChatGPT did an amazing job of adhering to my uncommon request.

ChatGPT Options I Appreciated

ChatGPT agent. Automate advanced, multi-step workflows.
Customized GPT. Construct a specialised chatbot with customized directions, or use one from their library of GPTs educated on social media, authorized, information science, and plenty of domains.
Picture technology. I take advantage of Sora, ChatGPT’s built-in picture technology mannequin, to generate design references and edit current photos.
Deep analysis. I discover GPT’s deep analysis mode fairly useful for advanced analysis, particularly historic analysis.

What I Didn’t Like

Picture technology takes fairly a little bit of time and generally doesn’t work very nicely for human options and textual content.
ChatGPT agent throws errors whereas navigating web sites if it doesn’t load rapidly sufficient.

ChatGPT Pricing

Free customers get entry to GPT 4.1 with limitless utilization and restricted utilization of superior fashions.
Plus customers ($20/month) embody ChatGPT brokers, Sora video technology, and analysis entry to new fashions.
Professional customers ($200/month) get prolonged limits on every part in Plus and entry to o3-pro and the Codex agent.

3. Claude

As a author, I’m fairly a fan of Claude. Claude is a wonderful inventive thinker, and after I give it sufficient context, it might probably emulate model voices very nicely. I closely rely on Claude for content material technique, first drafts, and modifying sentences.

For every new shopper, I usually arrange a brand new mission and supply it with paperwork like model tips, podcasts, and so on, as context. That is just like the CustomGPT characteristic by ChatGPT. Nonetheless, since Claude has a bigger context window, the mannequin produces higher outputs.

I additionally love Claude’s MCP characteristic. Like I discussed earlier, I used it to sync my e-mail to the AI assistant, which I’ll present you beneath. You too can connect with a wide range of different instruments reminiscent of Asana (mission administration), Canva (graphic design), and extra.

P.S.: HubSpot lately launched a MCP connector for Claude, which I’m tremendous enthusiastic about.

How I Examined Claude

Let’s begin with the analysis take a look at. I often like to begin my week by studying up on trending AI information so I can consider content material concepts round them. So, I prompted Claude to present me a summarized model, pulling info from my e-newsletter subscriptions plus extra net analysis by itself.

Right here’s the immediate I ran: “Are you able to give me a abstract of the AI information highlights from the final week? Entry my e-newsletter subscriptions by way of my e-mail to drag info from. Additionally, conduct unbiased analysis to search out some other essential information. Current this in a tabular format, with headline, brief blurb, and for those who assume any could be made in social media content material items.”

Nicely, colour me impressed. Whereas the primary merchandise was from July seventeenth (outdoors the request timeframe), Claude did a good job of collating current AI information. The content material concepts weren’t too nice, however I’ve gotten a lot better outcomes after I give Claude context about my shopper and targets.

I particularly appreciated how the knowledge was introduced — organized and simple to scan. And that’s one thing I discover in different Claude options too. As an illustration, right here’s how I used Claude to iterate on a touchdown web page for my purchasers.

It was useful to see how my copy appears in a design mockup. I can spot points, tweak my copy and optimize for manufacturing quicker.

Claude Options I Appreciated

Writing high quality. Out of all AI chatbots I’ve tried, Claude produces essentially the most on-brand and pure content material.
Tasks. I take advantage of tasks for organizing conversations and paperwork.
Integrations. Claude is now rolling out MCP connectors for many main apps.
Emphasis on privateness. Anthropic, Claude’s dad or mum firm, makes use of a proprietary algorithm referred to as Clio to anonymize person conversations for coaching.

What I Didn’t Like

Claude has strict utilization limits. For those who’re utilizing superior options like artifacts, analysis, and so on., you’re going to hit your restrict quick.
No picture or video technology options.

Claude Pricing

Free tier – Restricted entry to prime fashions.
Professional tier – ($17/month/person, billed yearly) – Unlocks increased message limits, tasks, Claude Code, integrations, and extra.
Max tier – (from $100/month/person, billed yearly) – 5-20x increased utilization than Professional, early and precedence entry to new options.

4. Grok

Have you ever ever doomscrolled for hours within the title of “content material analysis”? I do know I’ve. So, when X rolled out its native AI chatbot, Grok, I knew I needed to strive it.

Whereas different chatbots have restricted entry to social media (anti-scraping legal guidelines), Grok can faucet into X’s dwell area to watch traits and analyze different accounts. I continuously use Grok’s “clarify this publish” characteristic — it’s a useful method to get context on issues I’m clueless about with out leaving the platform. You too can tag @grok in tweets to fact-check the accuracy of knowledge.

How I Examined Grok

For the primary a part of the take a look at, I requested Grok to research the highest tweets about AI brokers up to now month. The output was a high-level overview of the important thing themes in trending posts. I may simply confirm the supply and authenticity of the tweets by following the linked handles.

Subsequent, I turned on the “DeepSearch” characteristic. DeepSearch is right for any process that wants heavy analysis and evaluation.

For this take a look at, I requested Grok to research the deal with of a preferred X influencer within the AI area of interest. Primarily based on its evaluation, I additionally prompted it to develop a content material technique for an influencer who desires to attain related success.

Upon operating the immediate, Grok walked me by way of its precise means of the way it tackled my request. This was a pleasant contact and gave me concepts for my very own analysis course of.

Grok’s social audit was probably the greatest I’ve seen from AI instruments, matching the standard {of professional} audits. The evaluation gave me every part I wanted to know: current + viral posts, engagement charges, posting frequency, presence on different platforms, viewers frequency, and extra.

I particularly appreciated the neat comparative desk on the finish of the audit. Good base to construct out a content material technique from. I’d give all the expertise a stable 8/10.

Grok Options I Appreciated

Grok is helpful for high-quality social media audits, evaluation, and real-time sentiment gauging.
Native X options like “Clarify this publish,” replies by way of tags, and information evaluation make Grok helpful for heavy X customers.
Grok is designed to have a refreshing humorousness (a by-product of being educated on social media, I suppose).

What I Didn’t Like

Grok doesn’t have a thriving developer group but, so third-party integrations are restricted.
No video technology capabilities.
Actual-time information also can result in misinformation.

Grok Pricing

Free entry to Grok 3 for all X customers.
X Premium ($7/month, billed yearly) – Unlocks superior Grok limits, boosted X efficiency,and so on.
X Premium+ ($32.92/month, billed yearly) – Sooner entry to newer options and ad-free expertise.
SuperGrok Heavy ($300/month) – Entry to Grok’s most superior fashions.

5. Github Copilot

At my earlier job as a software program engineer, I spent hours making an attempt to study a brand new coding framework.

Generally, my code wouldn’t work due to a tiny error proper below my nostril. I’d hunt Stack Overflow’s scattered threads for solutions, stress-testing them until I discover the one which works.

Github CoPilot would have been a lifesaver again then. With over 20M customers, Github Copilot helps builders code as much as 55% quicker. You’ll be able to generate code recordsdata on Copilot, create mockups, and debug your code on the extension or platform.

Copilot syncs with all main code editors, reminiscent of VS Code, Visible Studio, JetBrains and so on., so you should utilize an extension to entry it inside your favourite IDEs.

How I Examined Github Copilot

I began with a reasonably easy ask: Construct me a tic-tac-toe sport with an AI taking part in in opposition to me. Whereas I requested for a tic-tac-toe sport, Copilot appropriately recognized that I used to be describing the mechanics of a ping pong sport. Copilot: 1, Lipsa: 0.

Copilot generated three recordsdata: HTML for the canvas, CSS for styling, and JavaScript for the sport mechanics. I ported the recordsdata over to a web-based code editor, CodePen, and the sport labored fairly nicely.

Github Copilot Options I Appreciated

On the spot multi-language code technology for a wide range of use circumstances, from video games to dashboards.
Suggests the perfect method to implement or visualise the code.
Reveals logical considering and doesn’t observe directions blindly.

What I Didn’t Like

Copilot often produces incorrect or unoptimized code.
GitHub Copilot can not generate photos or visible mockups of generated code.

Github Copilot Pricing

Get began free of charge. 50 chat requests + 2,000 code completions.
Professional ($10/month) – Limitless agent mode & code completions.
Professional+ ($39/month) – Entry to premium AI fashions and GitHub Spark, a prompt-based app builder.

6. Gemini

Gemini is a superb assistant. As a result of its native integrations throughout Google merchandise like Workspace and Pixel telephones, I can apply it to the go. I at present use Gemini for duties like creating calendar duties with one immediate, drafting Gmail replies, Google Meet summaries/notes, and extra.

Gemini fashions are additionally fairly highly effective for superior reasoning, arithmetic, and sophisticated duties. Enjoyable truth: Gemini with Deepthink now has a gold medal on the Worldwide Math Olympiad.

How I Examined Gemini

Whereas I used to be looking for one thing to check Gemini with, I used to be pleasantly shocked to see a Gemini-powered abstract throughout my paperwork on Google Drive. They are saying one of the best experiments are those you bump into, and Gemini positively delivered on this one.

Subsequent, I wished to check Gemini’s video technology capabilities with Veo-3. My immediate was not one of the best, however the mannequin produced an amazing 5-second video.

The White Home was immediately recognizable, and the person’s options and actions have been additionally fairly pure. You’d positively want a number of iterations for extra advanced movies with layers and scenes. Nonetheless, this could offer you a good glimpse of what the mannequin can obtain.

So, my closing verdict on Gemini? I’d say go for it for those who use Google’s ecosystem closely. You’ll be quicker and extra productive throughout your every day apps.

Gemini Options I Appreciated

Native integration throughout all Google merchandise.
Superior doc evaluation and analysis capabilities.
You’ll be able to generate textual content, audio, and video in a single interface.

What I Didn’t Like

Gemini takes some time to generate each photos and movies.
Since Veo-3 isn’t natively obtainable in my nation, I had to make use of a VPN to entry it.

Gemini Pricing

Get began free of charge.
Gemini Superior ($19.99/month) – Unlocks entry to Veo-3, AI-powered docs, 2 TB of storage, and NotebookLM plus.

7. DeepSeek

As China’s prime LLM mannequin, DeepSeek is broadly considered a ChatGPT competitor. Shortly after its launch in Jan 2025, DeepSeek’s AI assistant app surpassed ChatGPT as the highest free app on the Apple App Retailer (US).

Whereas the preliminary momentum was short-lived, DeepSeek’s fashions have a great worth prop: low cost AI + good reasoning capabilities. At launch, DeepSeek’s capabilities have been akin to ChatGPT, whereas being 90% cheaper. Let’s see if that also holds true.

How I Examined DeepSeek

Once I examined DeepSeek, I targeted on research-heavy duties. I began with a code technology immediate to create a type, join it to a sheet, after which auto-filter responses primarily based on particular standards.

The mannequin took about ~30 seconds to generate code I may use. I exported the code to my Apps Script file, and it labored and not using a hitch.

Now, let’s take a look at DeepSeek’s analysis capabilities utilizing DeepThink R1. My immediate was to match and distinction different AI chatbots. Given DeepSeek has a censorship concern, I used to be curious to see what it might say about its opponents.

I appreciated how DeepSeek first thought of the viewers earlier than diving into particular person instruments. That’s precisely how I’d method researching an article.

The output was well-formatted, with the important thing takeaways in a structured desk. For those who’re on the lookout for a quick and environment friendly mannequin for non-sensitive analysis information duties, DeepSeek appears to be a great guess.

DeepSeek Options I Appreciated

Open-source mannequin licensed below MIT. It helps business use circumstances plus modifications to the bottom mannequin.
Most cost-efficient mannequin on this listing; as much as 1/thirtieth cheaper than related OpenAI fashions.
Excels at deep reasoning duties.

What I Didn’t Like

DeepSeek Pricing

DeepSeek chat is free.
API-based entry for DeepSeek Chat (per 1M tokens) – $0.07 (enter), $1.10 (output).
API-based entry for DeepSeek Reasoner (per 1M tokens) – $0.14 (enter), $2.19 (output).

DeepSeek additionally runs discounted charges (as much as 50%) for intervals of downtime (UTC 16:30-00:30, on the time of writing).

8. Perplexity

Wish to entry and take a look at numerous totally different fashions in a single software? Perplexity provides precisely that. The free model of Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine utilizing a mixture of Claude and OpenAI’s GPT mannequin within the backend. With my Professional subscription, I can change between the newest fashions like GPT 4.1, Claude 4.0 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Professional, and extra.

All of this makes Perplexity an amazing analysis assistant. I primarily use it to identify traits and analysis on the go. One in all my favourite elements of the software is the newsfeed beneath; it does an amazing job of recommending articles I’d really need to learn.

How I Examined Perplexity

I first examined Perplexity for development evaluation. Extra particularly, the highest B2B SaaS traits for 2025.

Whereas I fairly like how the knowledge is introduced and segregated in numerous tabs, the traits themselves have been primary. I’ve gotten higher outcomes with GPT-4-o on a immediate like this. Nonetheless, I did just like the follow-up query strategies.

Subsequent up: Let’s construct out a dashboard on the financial affect of U.S. tariffs utilizing Perplexity Labs, a professional characteristic.

Inside minutes, I had a completely purposeful working web site, with charts that drew up correlations between essentially the most important variables. The extent of element was spectacular. I may entry the entire particular person charts straight from the “Property” tab or create a shareable hyperlink for others.

Perplexity Options I Appreciated

Analysis utilizing prime fashions like Claude 4.1, GPT-4 and so on.
Citations and sources on all information and statistics, making it simple to cross-verify info.
AI-generated analysis feed for customized suggestions.
Nice visualization capabilities with Perplexity Professional.

What I Didn’t Like

Superior options like Perplexity labs have a slight studying curve.
Integrations to fashionable apps like Excel haven’t been constructed out but.

Perplexity Pricing

Free tier – Use the Sonar mannequin for limitless fast searches and 5 professional searches per day.
Pupil Professional tier ($4.99/month) – Unlock Perplexity Labs, analysis, premium AI fashions, and API credit.
Max tier ($200/month) – Early entry to Comet browser and limitless Perplexity Labs + Analysis.
Enterprise Professional ($33.33/person/month, billed yearly) – Limitless professional searches, collaborators, and devoted enterprise help.

9. HubSpot Chatbot Builder

Free Chatbot Builder Software program

If you would like a chatbot builder educated in your CRM information, look no additional than HubSpot’s chatbot builder. With HubSpot Chatbot builder, you possibly can design customized sequences for particular prospects, ship customized messages, and lighten the load on your help group.

Having seen help groups burn out from repetitive questions, I used to be curious to see how a lot HubSpot’s Chatbot builder takes off their plate.

Be aware: Whereas HubSpot’s chat builder software program is a rule-based chatbot, you possibly can customise it by way of code snippets and use highly effective third-party AI bots like Dialogflow.

How I Examined HubSpot Chatbot Builder

I discovered HubSpot’s Chatbot Builder fairly intuitive. The drag-and-drop interface made it easy to construct out specialised chatbots. Right here’s an instance of a lead-qualifying bot.

You need to use this bot to deal with the majority of your buyer questions and pre-qualify by asking focused questions. This helps your gross sales group save time on preliminary screening and put their vitality the place it issues.

One of the best half? Every lead can be documented in your CRM seamlessly. If a lead already exists inside your CRM, the bot will ship customized messages primarily based on their final interplay.

As an illustration, if I final adopted up with a lead per week again, it’ll reference that interplay and naturally proceed the dialog. Extra alternatives, fewer leads slipping by way of the cracks.

So, whereas this software isn’t strictly AI-powered, you should utilize it to construct out customized chatbots for easy use circumstances rapidly.

HubSpot Chatbot Builder Options I Appreciated

Seamless drag and drop interface to create chatbots rapidly with out coding.
Built-in with HubSpot’s CRM to retailer buyer information and set off e-mail campaigns.
No studying curve, simple templates, and intuitive expertise.

What I Didn’t Like

Rule-based chatbots aren’t very customizable.
Can’t deal with advanced use circumstances.

HubSpot Chatbot Builder Pricing

10. Intercom Fin AI agent

Intercom is a frontrunner within the buyer help house, and its AI chatbot, Fin isn’t any exception. Fin AI agent makes use of a mixture of prime AI fashions, reminiscent of GPT-4 and Claude, to ship a really conversational AI chatbot.

I first got here throughout this software by way of Anthropic’s case examine, the place Fin AI agent delivers common decision charges of 51% throughout their buyer base. These numbers are fairly spectacular, so I made a decision to dig deeper.

Fin AI agent permits you to sync content material from a wide range of sources, reminiscent of your web site, Zendesk, conversations, paperwork, and extra. You’ll be able to then practice the AI bot rigorously by batch-testing dwell conversations, score its solutions, testing totally different audiences, and extra.

Whereas this setup may want extra time and sources, it’s going to assist your customer support group turn out to be extra environment friendly in the long term. You too can arrange duties, customized directions, and extra.

How I Examined Intercom Fin AI Agent

Whereas I wasn’t capable of absolutely take a look at Fin AI agent due to its enterprise set-up, I spoke to Amrita Bhasin from Sotira, an AI retail firm. She makes use of Intercom for web site signups and buyer qualification.

She advised me that, “essentially the most distinctive use case [for our chatbots] is buying and extracting details about what SKUs/stock can be found so prospects can basically buy by way of the chatbot, so each step of the best way is guided; this virtually seems like in retailer customized buying for purchasers. “

I additionally signed up for the Fin AI agent trial to indicate you what the backend ticketing system appears like.

Intercom Fin AI Agent Options I Appreciated

Straightforward-to-use interface and a clear ticket administration system.
Built-in batch testing capabilities and reply rankings.
One-click deployment throughout e-mail, voice, dwell chat, social, and extra.

What I Didn’t Like

Vendor lock-in – It is advisable to migrate your complete stack to Intercom and recreate any alternate workflows from scratch.
Intercom’s options can really feel barely overwhelming for smaller groups.

Intercom Fin AI Agent Pricing

Important ($29/seat/month, billed yearly) – Fin AI agent, Messenger, primary inbox and ticketing system.
Superior ($85/seat/month, billed yearly) – Superior automation like workflows, workforce allocation and 20 Lite seats.
Professional ($132/seat/month) – SLAs, HIPAA compliance, and extra.

Fin AI agent has an outcome-based pricing ($0.99 per decision) with a minimal of fifty resolutions monthly.

11. Tidio Lyro

Tidio Lyro is a conversational AI chatbot constructed for small and medium companies. Lyro’s worth prop is easy: Reply buyer queries immediately primarily based in your help content material. If it might probably’t reply a query, it arms off the dialog to a human agent.

I spoke to companies which have built-in Tidio Lyro, they usually have been usually joyful about Tidio’s efficiency. Nonetheless, I observed that firms that didn’t have intensive documentation or help noticed increased escalation charges to human brokers.

How I Examined Tidio Lyro

Signing up for Tidio Lyro’s AI agent was an easy course of. After signing up, I crammed out some onboarding questions and was then redirected to a fast integration tutorial.

Right here, I can practice Tidio on my frequent gross sales, leads, and help flows to automate repetitive conversations. Lyro may even advocate merchandise to bottom-of-the-funnel patrons when applicable.

Oleh Stupak from Mgroup, who makes use of Tidio for lead qualification, advised me: “Though dealing with FAQs was the unique purpose, we found [Tidio’s] true energy lies in mechanically qualifying leads and sending them to the suitable Shopify specialist.”

Right here’s how their Tidio-powered chatbot appears:

Lyro Options I Appreciated

Learns out of your firm information and help paperwork to reply buyer questions.
Quick response occasions with affordable accuracy.
Constructed-in human hand-off system.

What I Didn’t Like

It may take too lengthy to load generally.
Pricing is multi-tiered and a bit advanced.
Closely dependent in your documentation.

Lyro Pricing

Flows (Begins at $24.17/mo) – Unlocks entry to clever response dealing with. 2,000 guests cap.
Lyro AI Agent (Begins at $32.50/month) – Consists of customized on-brand messages, knowledge-based responses, and human handoff. 50 Lyra AI conversations included.

12. Drift

Drift has turn out to be fairly fashionable since its February 2024 acquisition by Salesloft. It focuses on supporting B2B gross sales groups by way of AI, by straight integrating into Salesloft’s Income Orchestration Platform. I contemplate it the final word one-two punch for managing the client journey — from the primary interplay to closing the deal.

Drift nonetheless shines at what it does greatest: partaking website guests primarily based on their conduct, answering questions, reserving conferences, and qualifying leads. However now, with new options like Drift Have interaction, Fastlane, and Bionic Chatbots, it is a lot better at delivering quick, customized buyer experiences.

How I Examined Drift

I explored how companies are utilizing Drift in motion. For instance, the Website Concierge characteristic acts like a digital host, greeting guests, answering their questions, and pointing them in the best path, all in actual time.

One factor that caught my consideration was how Drift Have interaction helps gross sales groups tailor conversations primarily based on guests’ shopping conduct and former chats. It’s like having an AI-powered assistant in your web site, able to qualify leads or guide conferences on the spot.

Drift Options I Appreciated

Educated on 100 million B2B conversations to detect gross sales intent precisely and path to the best group member.
AI-driven purchaser qualification to determine prospects most certainly to transform primarily based on conduct patterns.
Devoted chat experiences for campaigns.
Personalizes messages primarily based on customer’s firm, trade, and engagement historical past.

What I Didn’t Like

Excessive entry barrier, making Drift appropriate to solely well-funded organizations.
Has a major studying curve, which requires technical experience.

Drift Pricing

13. Zendesk AI Brokers

I’ve been utilizing Zendesk for a few years now to handle help tickets for my purchasers. Having moved from the chaotic ticketing system of Discord, I discover Zendesk to be fairly environment friendly at organizing and managing conversations.

Integrating Zendesk’s AI chatbot into my workflow was an apparent subsequent step. Zendesk has years of actual help conversations (19 billion of them!) to coach the mannequin on, so its solutions are extra human-like.

How I Examined Zendesk AI Brokers

Right here’s what Zendesk’s ticketing system appears like:

You get a useful dashboard the place you possibly can invite group members, set auto responses, and reply to tickets straight. Zendesk’s built-in assistant, Copilot, mechanically categorizes the ticket intent, language, and sentiment. I also can use Copilot’s AI generated responses to answer to tickets.

Supply

Now, let’s go to the AI brokers half. Zendesk brokers could be activated by way of the Admin management panel in settings. I clicked on Create AI agent, and set the title and tone for my agent.

Then, it prompted me to pick out the model I need to practice the AI on. Keep in mind, for this to work successfully, you want a repository of helpdesk content material your AI agent can fetch responses from.

Zendesk Options I Appreciated

Enterprise-grade ticket administration resolution.
Workforce administration, useful resource allocation, and AI-powered contact facilities multi function software.
Strong observe document in help.

What I Didn’t Like

Zendesk’s brokers have pre-set tones, and there’s not a lot room for personalisation.

Zendesk Pricing

Help Group ($19/agent/month, billed yearly) – Primary e-mail primarily based ticketing, Fb/X help, automations, and analytics.
Suite Group ($55/agent/month, billed yearly) – Unlocks entry to AI brokers, dwell chat and telephone help.
Suite Skilled ($115/agent/month, billed yearly) – 5+ assist facilities, authorized compliances like HIPAA, clever escalations and extra.
Suite Enterprise ($169/agent/month, billed yearly) – 300+ assist facilities, sandbox atmosphere, audit logs, and extra.

You even have outcome-based pricing for brokers as an add-on with $1.50+ per profitable decision (quantity reductions obtainable).

14. Chatbase

Chatbase is an AI chatbot builder designed to spin up buyer help brokers educated in your information. This software is just like Tidio Lyro and Zendesk, with a built-in human hand-off system.

Two issues that stood out to me on this software have been its AI agent testing playground and the power to configure actions. With actions, your chatbot can deal with real-world duties reminiscent of setting conferences, triggering notifications, looking out the online, and extra.

How I Examined Chatbase

First, I created a brand new AI agent by configuring my workspace and offering it with coaching information. Then, I navigated to the Playground to check it.

On this take a look at atmosphere, I may simply check out totally different fashions, tones, and actions till I discover the best tone and depth for my bot.

You too can set system prompts to behave as sure roles (gross sales brokers, language tutor, and so on.) and customized directions. As an illustration, within the picture above, I requested it to behave as a gross sales agent. Whereas it pulled info from my documentation, the reply wasn’t very customized to my query.

Chatbase Options I Appreciated

Simply construct chatbots educated in your buyer information with their no-code interface.
Take a look at atmosphere to fine-tune agent responses and experiment with totally different fashions.
Strong analytics dashboard.

What I Didn’t Like

Solutions are closely reliant in your supplied documentation and lack personalization.
Whereas AI actions are a helpful idea, the plan limits are fairly restrictive.

Chatbase Pricing

Free Plan – 100 message credit/month, one AI agent (bot deleted after 14 days of inactivity).
Pastime Plan ($40/month) – 2,000 message credit, one AI agent, 5 actions/agent.
Customary Plan ($150/month) – 12,000 message credit, two AI brokers, 10 actions/agent.
Professional Plan ($500/month) – 40,000 message credit, three AI brokers, 15 actions/agent.

What I Realized About AI Chatbots From This Experiment

I’ve come a great distance from getting annoyed at customer support chatbots to embracing them as a strong enterprise software. Don’t get me incorrect — I nonetheless get annoyed with the chatbot responses generally. Nonetheless, it’s laborious to not be impressed after I can generate good content material concepts, draft content material, and even create respectable graphics in minutes.

If I needed to decide my favourite chatbots from this listing, it’d be Breeze (for end-to-end enterprise automation), Claude (for private use), and Tidio (for constructing customer-facing chatbots). Nonetheless, I do know many mates who would swear by ChatGPT’s customized GPTs.

My recommendation? Use my exams as a reference, choose the highest chatbots on your stack, and check out them. Every enterprise has distinctive wants, and whereas I’ve determined my favorites after intense testing, newer options may make me change.

Editor’s be aware: This publish was initially printed in March 2019 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.