Even now, it’s hard to picture how quickly ChatGPT became a phenomenon. Launched in November 2022, it was the fastest growing app in history. Today, it’s already part of many people’s daily lives and workflows.
When some enterprising developers saw this news, their response was, “I can do better.” Launched just a month later, Chatsonic presented itself as “Like ChatGPT, but with superpowers.”
What can Chatsonic really do? Is it actually any different from ChatGPT? Here’s our definitive Chatsonic review.
What is Chatsonic?
Chatsonic was introduced by Writesonic, an SEO writing platform with GPT integration. On launch, Writesonic founder Samanyou Greg made lofty claims about what Chatsonic could accomplish, including:
- Google search integration
- Up-to-date, factual content
- Voice commands
- Image generation
All on top of the usual ChatGPT features. In this Chatsonic review, we’ll see how well the actual program holds up to these promises. As you may know, I’m skeptical of any AI language model’s ability to separate fact from fiction.
How much does Chatsonic cost?
Chatsonic is available in the “Free Trial” version of Writesonic, with no credit card info required. I’m unclear on if the Free Trial is monthly or limited, but from what it seems, you can use Chatsonic for free up to 10k words/month.
For more words, you can upgrade to a Pro plan, starting at $19/mo or $152/yr. Pro plans charge more per word if you choose to use GPT-4 rather than GPT-3.5 (which you probably should).
How do you sign up for Chatsonic?
There’s no way to sign up for Chatsonic on its own—you’ll have to sign up for Writesonic to use it. Either way, you can start for free with your name and email.
But when you sign up from the Chatsonic landing page, you’ll be taken straight to the Chatsonic platform, with a pop-up listing some key features.
Finally, you’ll be able to customize your Chatsonic experience. You can toggle Google search integration, text to speech conversion, follow-up memory, search results, location, and image generation.
I notice a few copywriting problems here that tend to peeve me—”search” isn’t capitalized, then “Google” isn’t capitalized, then “to” is capitalized, but then “up” isn’t!
Similar copy issues plague the Chatsonic landing page. Maybe some people don’t notice them, but they can make your company look unprofessional. It makes me wonder if Chatsonic or another AI chat wrote the copy itself.
Chatsonic review: How do you use Chatsonic?
If you’ve used ChatGPT, Chatsonic’s UI will look familiar to you. Chats are stored on the left-hand side, while the bulk of the screen is a wide-open space to chat with your Chatsonic AI.
You’ll also notice a few extra features. For one thing, the word count limit, which goes away twice as fast if you’re using Google data.
Chatsonic is available as a mobile app, like ChatGPT, but also as a Chrome extension.
Up top, you have the ability to search your chats, select prompts from a library, and easily access the Chatsonic Chrome plugin, Discord server, or Twitter account. Chatsonic formerly had an auto-response feature for Twitter, but it’s been inactive since the platform shut off API access.
Using templates
If you’re not sure what to write with Chatsonic, they’ve got a small library of templates to help you. This includes everything from SEO-optimized articles to trip planners, with a few bold ones in the mix.
I decided to try out the “Translate” template, which is for some reason set up exclusively to translate things into Greek. My input returned the exact same output as Google Translate, even when I turned “include latest Google data” off.
I also tried the “rewrite to pass AI content detection” prompt, using some text pasted from an old ChatGPT dialog. The text it returned fooled some AI detectors, but ZeroGPT and Crossplag still clocked it.
Still, if the prompts aren’t always that impressive, they’re easy to use. You just click a template and type in your text; Chatsonic handles the rest.
Chatsonic AI personalities
On top of templates, you can choose from a few different personalities for Chatsonic AI to take on. Most of these aren’t all that practical, but they can help you explore the more entertaining side of AI.
In my experience, however, it doesn’t matter that much which personality you choose. I asked the same question—”What are the best toppings to put on a burger?”—to the poet, astrologer, and interviewer personalities and got the exact same answer, word-for-word.
The idea is probably to use these personalities for relevant prompts (i.e. asking the astrologer for a horoscope), but I think you’d achieve the same effect by telling the chat to be an astrologer in your prompt.
Generating images
One genuinely neat feature of Chatsonic is that it combines Stable Diffusion image generation and GPT text generation into one easy platform. You don’t have to toggle anything to generate an image; just write the prompt into the chat and Chatsonic figures it out.
In a bit of a cheeky move, I wrote a prompt that I know AI tends to struggle with: a Victorian painting of two women dancing. Since same-sex dancing pairs weren’t depicted in Victorian paintings, the AI has nothing to build off of.
Still, it returned quality images in a flash for the reasonable cost of 200 words. I can’t complain about this feature, and it definitely sets it apart from ChatGPT.
AI chat with latest Google data
To test Chatsonic’s claim that it can generate factual info using Google, I went with a more complicated prompt. I asked it to find 5 cheap burger joints in Philadelphia.
I was pleased that it returned actual references for its work. Indeed, these are all real places to buy burgers in Philly. On the other hand, the five listed are just the five top ranked places on Yelp, so I’m not sure where the other references come in.
How about those prices? To be fair, recent economic issues have forced many restaurants to raise their prices in the last few months. However, the SPOT Burger currently costs $10.75, and seems like it hasn’t cost $6 in years.
None of these prices are accurate—the Fountain Porter burger actually seems to be cheaper than Chatsonic claims.
To be fair, it was a complicated ask. But if we want AI to be the future, we have to expect more from it than copying Yelp’s work and garnishing it with made-up info.
I tried one more time with a simpler question: “Who are the oldest living Oscar winners?” This time, it showed its work, not providing a conclusive answer but presenting a solid summary of the facts it was able to scrounge.
Chatsonic pros and cons
Pros
Image generation: I’m sure there are others, but Chatsonic is the first AI tool I’ve seen that combines a chatbot and an image generator into the same program seamlessly.
Google search data: No, it doesn’t make the bot infallible, but Google data allows it to provide more thorough information than ChatGPT can.
Easy access: Getting started with Chatsonic is a breeze, and their Free Trial plan actually gives you a lot to work with. It’s also convenient for people who already use Writesonic; you can easily access it from the same platform.
Cons
Pricing: ChatGPT is completely free, at least for now. Chatsonic has cool bonus features, but since it’s using the same language model, high-demand users should stick with ChatGPT.
Useless features: Chatsonic’s templates don’t do much, nor do the chat personalities. The search data feature is an improvement, but it still doesn’t stop the AI from pulling fake facts out of thin air.
Limited access to GPT-4: As a free user, you’ll only be able to use GPT-3.5, with GPT-4 only available to subscribers. However, this is also true for ChatGPT.
Chatsonic review: Is Chatsonic the better ChatGPT?
Let’s start with a simple truth: ChatGPT is completely free, Chatsonic is not. If you plan to use your AI chatbot daily, Chatsonic might not be worth it.
That being said, the 10k word allowance is actually pretty solid. That’s enough to write, for instance, 10 SEO articles each month. And with extra features like image generation and Google search, it can definitely be said that Chatsonic is a more high-powered version of ChatGPT.
It’s not all positive, however. Many of Chatsonic’s additional features aren’t that functional. Plus, it’s no less susceptible to ChatGPT’s issues with false info or content that feels, well, robotic.
If you’re looking for a version of ChatGPT that can do a little more, and you don’t plan to use more than 10,000 words per month, you’ll want to check out Chatsonic. It won’t blow your mind, but it’s a little more luxurious.
Final Chatsonic review: 7.8/10 👍
