AI is expanding at the speed of thought. Headlines breathlessly announce updates in this realm every week. The large language model (LLM) market size is projected to reach $259,817.73 million by 2030 from $1,590.93 million in 2023, with a CAGR 79.80% during 2024-2030. Since ChatGPT-3 sprang into the market just over one year ago, its use has exploded, and top technology companies have introduced their own large language models (LLMs) in rapid succession, each platform jockeying for the top position as the technology skyrockets further. Each claims to have the best AI tools for business. Here, we’ll look at who’s in front of the race, and which LLM platforms are best for your business.
What Can A Large Language Model Do?
While each LLM has its strengths and limitations, the market is fluid, as updates regularly leapfrog each other and capabilities keep improving. Humans are using these models to make communications and operations more effective and efficient. Today’s marketers leverage AI to run customer service chatbots, generate copious lines of code, manage big data, and expedite a number of specific business functions including content generation, audio transcription summaries and paraphrasing, as well as translations.
This is just the start. While not recommended as the final authority for these functions, AI can produce first drafts that can be thoroughly reviewed by a real person to add a much-needed personal touch, update information, tie to past experiences, and correct for inaccuracies.
So Who Does it Best?
Since they exploded on the scene, they’ve transformed almost all industries. So which LLM is winning the race for best AI tools for business? They’re neck and neck in some cases, and the race changes every day. But at this moment, here’s how they stack up:
Comparing the Best AI Tools for Business
- ChatGPT-4: OpenAI quietly introduced the first iteration of generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) in 2012; then GPT-3 changed our world on November 30, 2022, and they introduced GPT-3.5 as a free research preview. The latest version, GPT-4, was integrated into ChatGPT and Bing on March 14, 2023 and requires a paid subscription. Microsoft is also funding its expansion, and the estimated user base is 180 million monthly users as of February 12, 2024.
ChatGPT-4 is currently the top LLM platform, boasting the ability to create code and functions, and offers a library of plugins. With the correct prompts, it does an excellent job of text summarizing and even generating copy. Its multilingual translation is also very good, and the image generator function is popular. Open AI is currently adding “memory” for ChatGPT, a feature that enables its chatbot to remember your interactions and other information about you. Whether you tell it to remember directly or not, it will store this information and use it, making it easier than ever to use.
Related: Chat GPT Knows Enough to Be Dangerous.
- Claude 2: This newcomer got its feet wet with OpenAI, but then went its own way after a feud in 2021. Since then, it has quickly gained a foothold in the AI race with several million users, and a steady increase. The company that created this LLM is called Anthropic, and their Claude 2 platform became available in July, 2023, accessible through an API and a new website: claude.ai. There’s a free and paid tier of services for claude.ai. Claude 2 excels at handling large volumes of information. The number of words that the system can process at one time is referred to as “tokens.” Claude 2 can handle 100,000 tokens (for reference Chat GPT-4 manages about 8,000). Therefore, claude.ai can process 75,000 words at one time (slightly more than the entire Catcher in the Rye manuscript).
Anthropic itself is also a strong competitor to Google, as it is attracting large amounts of funding. Its architecture is more advanced than most LLMs, so it can process more and make better predictions.
Related: What is Claude.AI and How Does it Differ from ChatGPT?
- Gemini (Formerly Bard): Google’s open-sourcing AI model chatbot was named BERT when it debuted in 2018, and it quickly raced to the front of the pack with its advanced architecture and capabilities, now claiming more than one billion users. Renamed Bard and now Gemini, it continues to be a top contender. Like ChatGPT-4 and Claude 2, it has excellent natural language processing and content generation. It also has the power to use Google Search content, for wide-ranging access and the ability to understand more inquiries and prompts. Gemini has an app for Android, and all Duet AI features from Google Workspace are now incorporated into its capabilities. Google just released its paid version, Gemini 1.5 (Advanced), with a mind-numbing one million tokens—larger than any other large-scale foundation model in existence.
- Llama 2: Meta has a top dog in this race too. The company introduced Llama 2 on July 18, 2023 and it’s the first open source model to reach the top of the list. It has more than 30 million users reported as of September 2023. Llama 2 is a free platform up until a business or user hits the 700 million monthly user mark; then it requires a special license. It is adept at natural language and reading comprehension as well as query resolution. Since it is open source, it lacks the safety and usability features of more commercial LLMs. However, it does a very good job with natural language processing, content generation, and an excellent job with multilingual support.
- Falcon: Created by the Technology Innovation Institute, the Falcon LLM is trained on a higher-quality dataset, encompassing a large set of text and code in many languages and dialects. Focused on developers, it reached about twelve million developers as of September 2023. Its more advanced architecture enables it to process data quickly and make more accurate predictions. Falcon 180B was released on Hugging Face Hub on September 6, 2023 and now overtakes Llama in scope, with the potential to reach the top spot in this race. It has very good natural language processing, excellent content generation, and excellent multilingual support.
- Cohere: Cohere was launched by the Canadian startup Cohere in June 2022. This open-source LLM is excellent at processing various languages and accents since it was trained on a diverse, inclusive dataset. It has partnered with McKinsey and is focusing on expanding into the enterprise space. There are no total user numbers available, but it is a popular LLM for businesses. Cohere is excellent at natural language processing and content generation, and very good at multilingual support. Trained on a large body of text, it can manage a variety of tasks well. It just released Aya, an open-source LLM that handles 101 languages, more than twice the number of languages that other open-source models support.
Related: Chat GPT Vs. Bard: Battle of the AI Chatbots.
How to Get the Most from AI
The potential for LLMs is endless. They can create quality content, including articles, product descriptions, website copy, and more. It can also power chatbots to help improve the user experience and increase website traffic. Further, AI makes transcription easier, saving time and resources. It can also translate websites into different languages. It has the ability to recommend products or content to users based on past preferences, further personalizing their experience and building loyalty and engagement.
However, be careful. LLMs still hallucinate, often making up facts. Many times their database only reaches up through 2023 or earlier, so information is not completely up-to-date. Finally, their content always needs the touch of a human to assure connection and accuracy.
Who Wins?
As with so many questions, it depends. For a free LLM solution that is dependable and easy to use, try ChatGPT-3.5, which will reliably generate content, transcribe, and translate information. Gemini and claude.ai’s free service are also great free options. For an LLM that provides better, more updated content, you can subscribe to ChatGPT-4. It is clearly the overall winner right now in terms of subscribers. It started with a million users in five days, expanded to 100 million in two months, and now counts about 180 million every month.
However, Falcon, Llama, and Cohere are also hot on their heels and offer substantial benefits, including excellent multilingual support and predictions. They also offer some of the best AI tools for business. If you’re having trouble deciding, register for our upcoming webinar “AI for Small Marketing Teams: Implementing Smart Tools for Smart People” to discover how to revolutionize your marketing efforts with tips from our experts. It’s a win-win.
