While ChatGPT certainly increased the hype around AI writing, some of the best AI writing tools existed long before ChatGPT entered the scene. Most of these tools rely on OpenAI's GPT models for text generation, but have their own unique features and use cases that differentiate them from each other. While some excel at producing SEO-optimized content, others are perfect for more specific tasks, like composing an email response.

To help you save time and be more productive, we reviewed the eight best AI writing tools. Our list includes:

1. Jasper: A really popular AI writing tool that's great for producing long-form articles and SEO-optimized content.
2. CopyAI: The AI writing tool of choice for copywriting assistance and short-form content needs.
3. ContentBot: A cost-effective alternative to Jasper with some distinguishing features.
4. Magical: For when you need to compose emails, reply to messages, or reach out to people.
5. ChatGPT: The viral AI sensation.
6. Frase: A powerful SEO-orientated AI tool that helps you research, write, and optimize content.
7. Writer: A leading AI-powered writing assistant for content teams.
8. Riku: The most customizable AI writing tool that we've come across.
   

Now, let's take a closer look at each tool.

1. Jasper (formerly Jarvis)

Best for long-form and SEO-focused writing 

Jasper is a popular artificial intelligence writing tool with a variety of use cases. Writers use it to generate social media posts, create blog outlines, help write long-form articles and reports, write ad copy, answer questions, and more. The AI content generator relies on OpenAI's GPT engine, but it's much more straightforward to use. Plus, Jasper has various templates and prompts to help you quickly achieve your desired results.

If you're interested in writing long-form content, then Jasper fares much better than many alternative tools, thanks to its "Boss Mode." Boss Mode includes lots of features to help you perfect your long-form writing, including:

• A command option. This lets you command the AI to generate your desired output (for example, you can type "write down 40 states in the U.S. and organize them alphabetically").
• Memory. Jasper “reads” your last 3,000 characters to keep its output consistent with your context.
• Integrations with Grammarly, Copyscape, and SurferSEO. These integrations help you spot and correct writing errors, ensure your work is plagiarism-free, and optimize your articles for SEO, respectively. However, keep in mind that you'll need to purchase subscriptions for Copyscape and SurferSEO separately. 
  

Jasper remains one of the most versatile, well-rounded AI writing tools. You can take it for a spin thanks to Jasper's five-day trial with 10,000 free credits. However, with the Boss Mode tier coming in at $82/month, it's also one of the priciest AI writers—so if you're on a budget, you might want to consider alternatives.

2. CopyAI

​Best for short-form writing needs

Like Jasper, CopyAI is a versatile AI writer with a lot of applications. However, we found Jasper to be the better choice for long-form writing, thanks to the many benefits of its Boss Mode and the quality of its long-form output. Plus, CopyAI isn't as effective for SEO-focused content. But it does shine somewhere else: for short-form needs.

If you're looking to generate ad copy, write blog introductions, create interactive social media posts, and craft better emails, CopyAI is a great choice. The app is super easy to use, with over 90 templates tailored to different use cases. 

To get started, just pick a template and give CopyAI the necessary inputs. After it generates text, you can use the software's additional functions—such as the rewrite feature or the option to convert passive to active voice—to refine your writing. The software also supports over 25 languages and has a really simple, intuitive interface.

CopyAI offers a limited free plan with 2,000 words per month and access to its core features, but you'll only be able to use it in English. CopyAI's paid plans are also quite competitive—the Pro plan costs just $49/month for unlimited words, and if you pay annually, it works out to $36/month. 

3. ContentBot

Best value for money

ContentBot is a direct alternative to Jasper—with a much lower price tag and some attractive additional features. While Jasper's pricing starts at $40/month, ContentBot's plans begin at just $29/month. Like Jasper, ContentBot is also powered by OpenAI's GPT models, but ContentBot gives you better output limits: 250 words per run, as opposed to the 100 from Jasper. Plus, ContentBot lets you rewrite up to 2,000 words per click, compared to Jasper's 100 words. 

ContentBot has added plenty of additional tools to improve your workflow, making it one of the best content generators available. For example, it's got its own suite of SEO tools and an in-house, proprietary plagiarism detector. It also supports over 110 languages and lets you create "content automations," such as an automation recipe that will email you blog post ideas every day. 

While ContentBot doesn't currently offer a free trial or free plan, you can take a demo of the platform here. You can also take it for a spin for just $15 thanks to the pay-as-you-go plan, which lets you purchase credits—1,000 words cost $1, and you can purchase anywhere from 15,000 to 5 million words. 

4. Magical

Best for writing emails and messages

Does reaching out to people make up a big part of your work day? You might be a recruiter corresponding with applicants, a customer support agent replying to questions, a salesperson reaching out to prospects, or even a real estate agent hunting for leads.

Whatever your use case, Magical is an AI-powered task automation tool that can help you out in a few ways. For starters, it lets you save templated, customizable messages as text shortcuts that you can summon wherever you work. You can also craft an entirely new message from scratch, however. In this case, Magical's AI writing assist feature will help you brainstorm by composing messages for you.

And the best part? Magical is completely free to use, and it requires zero setup. Just add it to Chrome with one click. 

5. ChatGPT

Best for various use cases

ChatGPT has quickly become the most well-known generative AI platform, thanks to its viral success. The platform offers an easy, interactive interface that lets you tap into OpenAI's powerful GPT models. You can use ChatGPT to produce blog outlines, write ad copy, rewrite content, answer questions, and more. 

Thanks to ChatGPT's versatility, you can get really specific with your questions—for example, you could ask it to produce a paragraph in Shakespeare's writing style, or to organize a list in alphabetical order. However, when using ChatGPT, it's also important to understand its limitations. Some people try to use ChatGPT for strategic input—for example, to generate business plans or marketing strategies—which becomes problematic. 

In these cases, remember that ChatGPT is primarily a text generator, so while it'll give you a coherent plan, it's not backed by any real analysis or an understanding of your business model. It's just text strung together from its training model. To get a real business plan, you'll need an actual strategist to help you. 

If you keep ChatGPT's limitations in mind, and play to its strengths, then it's one of the most cost-effective, user-friendly AI tools. And thanks to its open-source prompts library, you'll find lots of templates to help you get started quickly.

ChatGPT has a generous free plan, but if you want more reliability, you can upgrade to ChatGPT Plus for just $20/month. 

6. Frase

Best for SEO writing

Frase is an AI-powered SEO assistant with various features, including competitor analysis, a detailed outline builder, a questions engine, topic suggestions for your on-page SEO, and, of course, an AI writing engine. We really like how easy the platform is to use—it's super intuitive with different features organized under their respective tabs. 

You can start by using Frase to analyze a topic or your competitors—just feed it a keyword and proceed to check out "Top Results'' and "Questions." Then, use Frase's AI-powered outline builder to create an outline. You can also use Frase's AI controls to help write your article. "Write for me" helps you automatically complete sentences, or write new paragraphs, while templates like "blog introduction" are great for getting specific outputs. 

When you start writing, you can refer to Frase's topic model to help optimize your article for SEO. The topic model tells you what keywords to include in your article, and you can compare your Topic Score vs. your competitor's to see how you fare. 

Frase's plans start at $14.99/month for the solo plan and max out at $114.99/month for the Teams plan (this includes three user seats, extra seats cost $25 each). Each subscription comes with 4,000 generated AI words a month—if you need more, you can get unlimited AI-generated words for an additional $35/month with the Pro add-on. 

7. Writer

​Best professional writing assistant

Although Writer does come with text generation and AI-powered rewrite features, it's not a dedicated AI writing tool—it's more of an AI writing assistant. Writer offers spelling and grammar checking features, the option to create custom style guides and add your own vocabulary, text shortcuts, AI-generated first drafts, and AI writing features.

If you work in a team, like a content or marketing team, then Writer's collaboration functionality can help you stay consistent and get more work done. You can try the tool out for free thanks to Writer's 14-day free trial, and when you're ready to upgrade, it'll cost you $18/month per user for the Team plan. 

8. Riku

Best for customization

If you want full customizability and are willing to really get your hands dirty, then Riku is the best AI writing software to take a chance on. Unlike the other text generators on our list, Riku doesn't limit you to one model, and it's not an off-the-shelf app. 

Riku offers more of a boutique experience—it lets you build and train your own AI models, without code, to customize the output to your needs. It also offers fine-tuning, which helps you obtain more accurate output than what you'd get from prompts. With fine-tuning, you feed the AI model lots of different examples, and it learns from them, ensuring the results you obtain from it are tailored to your needs. Riku claims that you can reverse engineer other AI writing tools by using a combination of prompts and fine-tuning (check out Riku's educational videos to learn more).

Riku also lets you organize datasets using its AI, create images and prompts, and publicly share your models through password-protected links. When you subscribe to Riku, you'll get unlimited GPT-J generations. If you want to use OpenAI's models instead, you can purchase tokens for them directly from Riku.

Which AI writing tool is right for you?

All of the AI writing tools we reviewed are mature platforms with big customer bases, so any one (or more) of them can help you improve the way you work. But when you're choosing between them, it's best to consider your use cases, budget, and the tool's learning curve. Some apps, like Magical and ContentBot, you can plug-and-play, whereas a tool like Riku will require a lot more setup.

Don't shy away from trying out multiple tools, either. Take the ones with free trials and free plans for a spin and see which one best suits your needs.