1. Request Limits & Real-Time Data From Web Search

Request limits determine how many questions, prompts, or API calls you can make without hitting a wall. It’s important because if you’re running a busy workflow (or even doing research), you don’t want to constantly run into usage errors.

• Requests Per Minute: This tells you how many prompts you can send in a single minute.
• Requests Per Hour: Some AIs cap how many requests you can send in an hour
• Requests Per Day: Daily limits are a hard stop. It depends on your usage and server load.
• Requests Per Month: If you’re using AI consistently across a month, you want a generous monthly cap.

Real-time data means the AI can actively pull information from the internet while answering your questions – not just rely on a static database or old training data.

Why does this matter?

If you’re asking about breaking news, current prices or anything that changes often, real-time search can make a massive difference between a helpful answer and an outdated one.

2. File Uploads

• File uploads: Whether the platform support uploading files during a conversation. You can drag-and-drop PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, images, etc., and the AI will read and process them.
• File Uploads Per Conversation: This is how many individual files you can upload within a single chat. Why it matters? If you have lots of files you want the AI to analyze in one go, Deepseek offers better flexibility.
• File Size Per Conversation (Combined): The total size of all files uploaded together in one conversation. Bigger combined limits mean you can upload larger sets of documents without splitting them into multiple chats.
• Size Per File Per Conversation: The maximum size a single file can have during upload. It’s useful when uploading heavy PDFs, large spreadsheets, or detailed presentations without chopping them up.
• Daily Limit File Upload: The number of files you can upload per day.
• File Types Supported: PDF, Images (JPG, PNG, etc.), Word (Docx), Excel (XLSX), PowerPoint (PPT), Text (TXT), Image With Text (OCR), Archives (.zip), Archives (.rar, .7z)
• Executables (.exe, .bat, .sh). For security reasons – these file types could be dangerous.).

3. Data Analysis

• Data Analysis: capable of analyzing datasets, identifying trends, patterns, and offering intelligent insights based on your uploaded files.
• Summarize Data: condense large datasets into short, understandable summaries – highlighting key figures, main findings, and essential trends without you needing to dig manually.
• Extract Insight: Beyond just summarizing, the AI can pull actionable insights like “top-performing categories,” “biggest loss areas,” or “forecasted growth” based on your data.
• Create Tables: The AI can take raw data and organize it into structured tables — super helpful if you’re trying to reformat messy information into a clean, easy-to-read format.
• Generate Charts: automatically create visual charts (bar graphs, line charts, pie charts, etc.) based on your data.
• Spreadsheets: read, edit, and work with Excel (XLSX) or CSV files, allowing them to do things like filter data, create pivot tables, or even help fix broken spreadsheets.
• Visualize Data: Same idea as generating charts, but even broader — this includes turning tables into interactive dashboards, infographics, or multi-layered visual breakdowns.
• Transform Files: This feature means the AI can convert files from one format to another, clean up messy data, split or merge datasets, and reformat content for different platforms (e.g., turning a TXT file into an Excel spreadsheet).
• Run Calculations: calculate averages, totals, percentages, financial models, or even run complex formulas — without you needing to manually build anything.

4. Image Generation

AI isn’t just text anymore — many platforms now generate images too!

• AI Version: The newer the model, the better it typically handles complex or high-quality image generation prompts.
• Image Generation: can create images from text prompts. If you want AI-created pictures, posters, or visual designs, you’ll need to use CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, or Deepseek.
• Image Models: Each model has different “styles” — for example, Imagen 3 is known for high realism, while Designer is often more artistic or creative.
• Image Request Per Minute: This tells you how many image prompts you can send every minute. If you’re rapidly creating lots of visuals (like concept art or product mockups), higher per-minute limits help avoid annoying slowdowns.
• Image Request Per Hour: You can request up to certain images per hour on all platforms that support image generation.
• Image Request Per Day: you can request up to certain images per day
• Image Request Per Month: you can request up to certain images per month

5. Programming / coding

The AI tool is very important, because more advanced versions usually mean better understanding of code structures, error handling, and offering more accurate suggestions.

• Code Edits Desktop App: It’s important because it can live-edit your code with an IDE-like experience. And if you prefer local development and want AI deeply integrated with your coding tools (like VS Code)
• Coding Model: Refers to the specific AI coding version they are using.
• Language Support (Python, JavaScript, Java, C++)
• Understand Code: capable of reading and understanding existing codebases — so you can paste in snippets or files, and they’ll grasp what’s happening.
• Generate Code: They can write full programs or functions from scratch based on prompts (e.g., “Write a Python function to sort a list”).
• Generate Code Snippets: Able to generate partial code — like a single function, a component, or a loop — without needing a full project context.
• Edit Code: You can upload or paste in code and ask them to edit it — for example, making it more efficient, fixing bugs, or rewriting it in another language.
• Write Code: Besides editing, they can start new code projects based on your requirements from scratch.
• Collaborate Code: Think of this as “pair programming with AI.” You can brainstorm ideas, debug together, refactor step-by-step — like working with a junior dev assistant.
• Review Code Errors: They can find bugs or logical errors in your code, explain them, and suggest corrections.
• Code Improvement: Beyond fixing errors, they can optimize your code — making it faster, cleaner, and more resource-efficient.
• IDE-Style Inline Suggestions: Like real IDEs (Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, etc.), the AI can suggest code improvements as you type. This speeds up your coding massively by offering real-time suggestions without needing to ask separately.
• Automatic Suggest Code: A more proactive feature: AI automatically offers suggestions while you’re coding — like autocompletion or proposing fixes.
• Automatic Modified Code: The AI can automatically modify your code if errors are found or if there’s a better version — not just point out issues, but actually rewrite the corrected code for you.

6. Features

Choosing the right AI isn’t just about intelligence — it’s about how you can interact with it, where you can access it, and what extra powers it gives you.

• Voice Mode: Can you interact with the AI by speaking (instead of typing)?
• Voice in Web: Can you use your browser to talk to the AI (without needing a separate app)?
• Voice in Mobile (iOS and Android): Can you talk to the AI via your phone app?
• Accessibility: Access in Android, iOS, iPadOS, Windows and Web Access (browser-based access). If you need your AI to work everywhere (especially on Windows PCs), choose carefully!
• Chat Function: Simple — can you chat with the AI by typing or talking?
• API Option: This shows whether the AI can be used programmatically inside your own apps (for developers). If you want to build apps, websites, or automations, APIs are critical.
• Text, Voice, Image Searches: Can you search the internet or databases using text queries? Can you search by speaking instead of typing? Can you search or analyze based on an image you upload?
• Custom GPTs: Can you build or use a customized AI (for specific jobs or industries)? Custom GPTs can give you a massive productivity boost if you need AI fine-tuned for your personal or business needs.
• Voice-to-Voice Conversation: Does the AI talk back to you in real-time with actual voice (instead of just text-to-speech)? Voice-to-voice makes the interaction feel more human — very useful for hands-free, natural conversations.

7. Unique features

“Multimodal” means the AI can process multiple types of input (not just text). Multimodal AIs are much more flexible, making them good for business reports, creative projects, and accessibility.

• Multimodal (Text): can understand and work with text input.
• Multimodal (Image): can interpret and work with images — for example, reading screenshots, diagrams, or photos.
• Multimodal (File): can read, summarize, and interact with files like PDFs, DOCX, Excel spreadsheets, etc.
• Multimodal (Voice): can understand voice inputs — speaking to them instead of typing.
• Office 365 Integration: CoPilot (Microsoft’s platform) integrates directly with Office 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. If you live inside Microsoft tools for work or school, CoPilot could supercharge your productivity.
• Google Workspace Integration: Only Gemini officially integrates with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail). If your company or personal use relies on Google products, Gemini fits in naturally.
• Truth-Seeking: This means the AI actively cross-checks facts or tries to verify information instead of just answering based on its training. Grok includes explicit truth-seeking behavior. It helps reduce hallucinations or wrong answers, especially important for research, news, and technical data.
• X Integration (formerly Twitter): Grok (Elon Musk’s AI project) has native integration with X — meaning it can pull live posts, trends, and news from the platform directly. If you want real-time social media insights, Grok gives you a big advantage.
• Chain-of-Thought Reasoning: This means the AI explains its thought process step-by-step instead of just giving you an answer. Only Deepseek offers this natively. If you want AI that “thinks out loud” (great for education, logic puzzles, or transparent decision-making), Deepseek is very valuable.

7. Which AI service should you choose?

Everyday general use: ChatGPT Free (GPT-4o Mini) offers the most balanced experience — it’s fast, intuitive, and supports real-time search, file uploads, image understanding, and voice input. For everyday tasks like writing, summarizing, casual coding, or chatting, it just works — and does so reliably. It’s the most complete free AI assistant for general users.

Programmer: ChatGPT handles a wide range of programming tasks — from writing functions and reviewing code to debugging and explaining errors. It supports all major languages, provides inline logic, and even allows file uploads for code review. For a free tier, it’s surprisingly developer-friendly and ideal for both beginners and pros.

Image Editors / Creators: Gemini uses Imagen 3, one of the most advanced image generation models available. It produces clean, realistic, and creative visuals with high accuracy to the prompt. If you’re focused on generating artistic or commercial-quality images — and want to stay within a free plan — Gemini is the top choice.

Data Analysts: ChatGPT Free supports file uploads (like Excel, CSV, PDFs), can analyze tables, summarize datasets, and even extract insights from raw numbers. With built-in OCR, real-time web search, and support for charts and data transformation, it handles most day-to-day analysis tasks without needing advanced tools — making it the best free AI for analysts.