It’s finally happened: ChatGPT has adverts.
OpenAI is displaying adverts on ChatGPT’s free and Go tiers, and at the time of writing, they’re only being forced upon US subscribers. That’s the case for now, but it won’t be long until adverts are rolled out to more countries and more users—not forgetting that ChatGPT Go subscribers are still forking out a subscription fee.
Thankfully, there are still numerous excellent ChatGPT alternatives out there that don’t splash adverts in your chat, and better still, deliver arguably better AI experiences than ChatGPT anyway.
Confer
Super-secret AI chatbot experience
Confer is one of the most interesting ChatGPT alternatives because it’s attempting to deliver a fully privacy-focused AI chatbot experience. In that, instead of having every prompt, search, and input used to train AI and build a personal profile on you, Confer aims to protect your privacy instead.
It’s a profound change from the AI experiences most of us are now well accustomed to, led primarily by ChatGPT. There have always been folks using local AI to get around the extensive privacy issues levied by AI chatbots, but Confer is one of the first online, cloud-based options delivering a powerful, privacy-focused alternative to ChatGPT—and all without ads.
Confer also has a great feature up its AI-sleeve: you can import your existing chats from ChatGPT to your new AI-privacy haven, so you don’t have to leave your old chats behind. Another confidence-filling aspect around Confer’s privacy and ad-free credentials surround it’s development team, led by Moxie Marlinspike, the cryptographer and co-founder of the ultra-privacy focused Signal messaging app.
Claude
It’s a “space to think”
Not long after OpenAI revealed its plans to force adverts on its free and Go users, Claude developer Anthropic announced it would keep its AI chatbot free of adverts for the foreseeable future.
Anthropic reckons that for an AI chatbot to be truly helpful, its responses should be free of influence from advertisements, third-party product placements, and so on. It’s hard to disagree; who wants adverts distracting from what may be a deeply personal conversation or a detailed analysis of your business insights?
It’s not just the lack of adverts that makes Claude an excellent ChatGPT alternative. Its features, like Claude Code, Artificats, Connectors, deeply personal writing styles, file creation, and more, make it one of the best AI chatbots to use instead of ChatGPT.
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Perplexity
Despite its ups and downs, it’s still a great alternative
You may be wondering why Perplexity is appearing on this list of ChatGPT alternatives without adverts. Just a few months ago, you’d have been absolutely correct, but Perplexity is changing its focus to more align with Anthropic and less with OpenAI.
As reported by the Financial Times (sign-up required) on February 18, 2026, Perplexity is ditching the ads because it fears that over time, it’ll erode trust in its product and responses. It’s a big about-turn from what was one of the first major AI companies to roll out advertising on its free-tier, recognizing that adverts create doubt and mistrust.
That’s great news if you’re seeking to replace ChatGPT, because Perplexity has long been recognized as one of the best alternatives. While other chatbots have long since caught up with Perplexity’s more conversational, question-answer style of prompting, it still remains a powerful tool packed with its own AI models, along with other features like Discover, Spaces, Finance, and up-to-date news.
Duck.ai
AI from one of the best Google alternatives
DuckDuckGo remains the go-to when leaving Google behind, but did you know that DDG also has an AI chatbot? Duck.ai is an ad-free AI chatbot that, similar to Confer, actually puts an emphasis on privacy, providing what’s essentially a proxy connection to the chatbots you want to use.
In that, it appears as if all the prompts are coming from Duck.ai, which is acting as an intermediate to keep your searches and data private. Well, depending on what you search for, as you can always accidentally expose yourself, even with privacy features helping you out.
Duck.ai has some small limitations, mind. For example, it defaults to the now “old” GPT-4o mini model, which still gets a job done but may feel like a step back to long-term ChatGPT prompters. Other model options include GPT-5 mini, GPT-OSS 120B, Llama 4 Scout, Claude Haiku 4.5, and Mistral Small 3, but nothing will truly compare to the latest ChatGPT models.
Perplexity is giving you wrong answers on purpose
It still offers the best value of any AI tool.
Gemini
Arguably the best free AI chatbot experience of all
You can’t have a list of the best ad-free AI chatbots without including Google’s Gemini. The far-reaching and powerful AI tool has become the go-to for millions of folks, and with Gemini available across most modern Android devices along with the Gemini web app and Google’s AI Studio, it has a way of just working when you need it.
It’s also come a long way since its early, error-strewn days known as Bard. Google’s rebrand and subsequent enormous investment in Gemini has propelled it swiftly towards the top of most AI comparisons and leaderboards, with Gemini’s various versions frequently featuring at or towards the top, and that’s without getting into Gemini’s hidden, underrated features.
Like Claude and Perplexity, Google also took a swipe at OpenAI’s advertising plans, with (as per Source) Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirming there aren’t “any plans” to fill Gemini with advertising.
This also further debunks claims made towards the end of 2025 that Google would begin rolling out Gemini adverts throughout 2026, first reported by Adweek but swiftly called out as false by Dan Taylor, VP of Global Advertising at Google.
Don’t put up with advertising in your AI chatbot
OpenAI has to somehow claw back some of the billions of dollars spent on hardware and development of its AI models, and advertising is an easy option.
But on this front, I’m with Anthropic and Perplexity: adverts within AI chatbots cheapen and devalue the experience, and make the output seem untrustworthy and hard to gauge.
Thankfully, you don’t have to stick around, as there are plenty of AI chatbots that don’t feature adverts.
