Generative AI (GenAI) has opened a new front in technology, creating opportunities to improve business and personal ambitions. Adoption is off the charts: three out of five workers are using or plan to use GenAI (Salesforce), and more than a third of businesses already use the technology for low-level tasks, says McKinsey.

Increasingly, these AI services charge for access. However, there are free versions of Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Meta's Meta.ai, and OpenAI ChatGPT. What do you get for such an affordable price? All these AIs share common limitations. Their models are not as smart, fast, or new as paid versions. They offer fewer tokens than their subscription sisters (see sidebar), and their performance can vary depending on their popularity.