WHAT THE TECH? Should you stick with free version of Chat GPT or switch to a paid version

By now you’ve probably tried Chat GPT a few times. Maybe you use it every day.

Real estate agents have found it saves time creating home listings. Computer programmers, students, teachers, and small business owners have found that Chat GPT can save hours completing tasks that require creating content and sending email.

While Chat GPT is helpful, the free version is a bit limited. Open AI, Google, and Microsoft have all released paid versions of the generative AI program that costs $20/month. Why would you pay for something you can otherwise get free?

I hope this can help you decide. To try out Chat GPT 4 I’ve been using Microsoft’s “Copilot” for the past few weeks to see who could find a premium version helpful. And I’m impressed.

If you’re a Windows PC user who does a lot of things in Word, Excel, Teams, and Powerpoint, Copilot can save a lot of time as it works well within the Microsoft 365 family and programs.

In Word, Copilot creates and formats articles, blog posts, presentations, and anything else you’d want to do in the word processing program. It can find and add images to support its work. Which saves time for someone who does most of their work in Word.

What’s most impressive is how Copilot can work within PowerPoint to build an entire presentation.

Copilot appears as a side window in PowerPoint so I don’t have to open a separate program and then copy and paste what it creates. I simply asked it to create a PowerPoint presentation on the importance of using TV antennas in the home.

In a few seconds, Copilot built a 9-slide presentation complete with images. I did no research. I just asked it to perform the task which would have taken me hours to complete on my own.

I then had Word build a speech to go with the presentation. Users say Copilot also completes tedious spreadsheet tasks in Excel.

There are Copilot apps for smartphones and tablets.

Chat GPT 4 uses Dall-E3 which is another AI engine that creates images.

Need to create artwork that’s better than free clip-art type images? You’ll need the paid “pro” version of Copilot I asked Copilot to create a velvet-style painting of dogs playing poker, but instead of dogs use hairless cats. In seconds it gave me 4 images to choose from along with prompts to make changes and the ability to edit the image myself.

I also asked it to give me ideas for a YouTube video studio with lighting suggestions.

But I found it didn’t do as well at creating company logos. After multiple attempts asking Copilot to design a new logo for What the Tech? I gave up. None of the logos it returned could easily be read even after asking it to create a “simple logo with two colors.”

Bottom line: If you only need ChatGPT to write papers or come up with ideas, the free versions are all you need. But if you work a lot in Microsoft 365, the ability to use Chat GPT within those programs may be worth the $20 a month.