Can you rattle off the top 10 generative AI services in order of popularity? You’ll probably guess that number one is ChatGPT (and you’ll be right). But what’s the second most popular generative AI app? Have you used it? Number three? Four? I’m going to guess that you’re not as familiar with the most popular generative AI tools as you could be. The image above is the top 50 list as of June 23 published by a16z using data from SimilarWeb.
You don’t need to be an expert on all 50 of these services (although it would certainly be helpful), if you’re tasked with thinking about how your organization can leverage generative AI tools to increase productivity and create value, you should have a good feel for what differentiates the top 10.
1. ChatGPT – Reigning supreme, ChatGPT is the the most popular chat interface to the most popular large language model.
2. CharacterAI – lets you chat with fictional characters.
3. Bard – Google’s answer to ChatGPT. Maybe Gemini will be better.
4. Poe – a cross model chat client that gives you access to GPT-4, Claude, and others.
5. Quillbot – a highly specialized paraphrasing tool.
6. Photoroom – mobile optimized generative AI photo studio.
7. Civitai – a platform for sharing Stable Diffusion AI Art models.
8. Midjourney – a paid text-to-image tool that was more popular when it was free.
9. Hugging Face – An expansive hub for AI enthusiasts, Hugging Face offers over 30k models, 5k datasets, 2k ML demos, and a plethora of libraries.
10. Perplexity – a chat interface that provides citations for the sources of its answers.
It’s essential to remember that the AI landscape is ever-evolving. These rankings are a snapshot in time, and shifts are inevitable as new models, interfaces, and user behaviors emerge.
Two key trends are evident:
- The rise of AI copilots aiding in automating cognitive tasks.
- A focus on specialized AI solutions that cater to niche tasks with precision.
One “that’s interesting” moment provided by this list is that character.ai is in the number two spot. It’s an app that is specifically designed to turn the generative AI weakness of hallucinations into a core strength for the app. There are no right answers when you are talking to a science fiction character or a famous person who died hundreds of years ago. This may say more about character.ai’s 13-32 year-old audience than it says about overarching use cases for generative AI.
If you’re interested in diving deeper in to current generative AI apps and platforms, sign up for our free online course Generative AI for Execs.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
