ChatGPT users don’t have to be coding masterminds to benefit from the tool. In fact, for many tasks, they don’t need any coding knowledge at all. However, there are still some tasks that require a guiding hand in the form of third-party integrations, also known in this specific context as ChatGPT plugins.
Luckily for avid ChatGPT users, there’s now an ecosystem of ChatGPT plugins available to download, strategically fashioned to channel ChatGPT’s immense potential into specific tasks like online searches or securing restaurant reservations. So, we’ve searched high and low for the 10 easy to use (yet genuinely useful) ChatGPT plugins and add-ons.
Once installed, these plugins will help you maximize the value of your $20 per month ChatGPT subscription. They may only end up saving you an hour or two of time each week, but there are thousands of ChatGPT plugins that are completely free to use – so really, there’s very little downside.
What Is a ChatGPT Plugin?
ChatGPT plugins are third-party apps designed to accomplish a wide range of different tasks, all powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model system.
Just opening up ChatGPT and trying to hold a conversation doesn’t always result in any actionable benefits. The best plugins will channel the power that ChatGPT-4 delivers, giving users a clear, measurable path towards success.
Granted, not all plugins do a great job of wrangling the sometimes-finicky AI model. But a good plugin works sort of like adding an extra magnifying lens to a microscope: ChatGPT remains the main engine at all times, but adding that extra filter can help you get more targeted results.
Plugins vs GPTs
It’s good to just take a second to clarify the difference between ChatGPT plugins and GPTs. In November 2023, ChatGPT launched GPTs – a way for users to make their own, custom chatbots with custom knowledge bases. A GPT store where these can be bought and sold will be launched at some point this year (2024) OpenAI says.
However, they’re not the same things as a plugin. Plugins usually have singular functionalities and are more like extensions of existing “apps” within the chat interface. Custom GPTs are more like niched versions of ChatGPT – chatbots with specific purposes or knowledge bases.
The Best ChatGPT Plugins for 2024
AI has been a hot topic now for some time, so it’s no wonder that the most popular ChatGPT plugins are easy to spot. But not all plugins are created equal: If you don’t interact with it carefully, ChatGPT can be prone to AI hallucinations, the term for confidently made-up assertions with no basis in reality. A plugin designer needs to plan for this, and should build fail-safes into any software that relies on ChatGPT.
Here, we’ve reviewed all the biggest and best plugins to determine which are worth checking out.
In this guide:
- PromptPerfect: Best for generating prompts
- VoxScript: Best for search engine results
- Expedia: Best for travel
- Canva: Best for graphic design
- OpenTable: Best for restaurant reservations
- WolframAlpha: Best for computation
- Instacart: Best for shopping and food prep
- Speak: Best for translating languages
- WebPilot: Best for talking to webpages
- AskYourPDF: Best for talking to documents
PromptPerfect: Best for generating prompts
There’s no better place to start than with prompts — the term for the statements you’ll need in order to get any responses from ChatGPT in the first place. If you don’t have an ear for crafting the perfect prompt yourself, try the PromptPerfect plugin.
For example, you could suggest “raccoon in space suit” as a possible prompt, which PromptPerfect might spin up into a much better prompt like “Adorable raccoon astronaut exploring an alien planet, futuristic space suit with glowing neon accents, surrounded by strange and colorful flora and fauna, sci-fi atmosphere.”
There’s a catch: Unlike the other plugins in this guide, it’ll cost you $9.99 per month. This plugin exists to suggest more detail for a bare-bones prompt, helping the user realize just how complex a prompt they could make — even if they ultimately tweak the results to their own taste.
VoxScript: Best for search engine results
The VoxScript plugin began as a project aimed at making YouTube easier to search, but its functions go beyond that. With it, users can automatically pull up the perfect Google search result and save themselves the trouble of sifting through all the possible options. Given the amount of SEO and sponsored ads you’ll need to avoid these days, that’s a big time-saver.
Another cool use of VoxScript includes searching through YouTube transcripts to isolate specific statements, analyzing them, and even “holding a conversation” with the text of the video to pull out key insights. If you’re interested in learning more uses of the plugin, just use the prompt “what can Voxscript do” once you’ve installed it for a complete list of what it can do.
Expedia: Best for travel
Plenty of brand names have jumped on the ChatGPT plugin bandwagon, and Expedia has been getting some of the best reviews for its own offering. With the Expedia plugin, you’ll be able to ask ChatGPT about all the pesky but essential tasks needed for vacation planning: Tell it your destination, and the plugin can suggest possible round-trip flights, hotel booking, and even sights or activities to check out once you’re at your destination.
Expedia was one of the first waves of plugins released in early 2023, so they went all out to leave a good impression. According to the company, this app will look through “1.26 quadrillion variables including hotel location, room type, date ranges, price points, and much more.”
Canva: Best for graphic design
Canva is a popular graphic design platform that makes it easy to craft social media images, slideshows, and more. But Canva wasn’t content to just be every social media manager’s favorite tool. Now it has a ChatGPT plugin to help everyone else become masters of graphic design art as well.
Once you’ve installed the plugin, just tell ChatGPT directly what you need with a prompt along the lines of the one we suggested in an article published last year: “I am a B2B technology website. Create me a Twitter/X banner.” You’ll get multiple options to pick from, and since Canva is directly integrated, you can open up and edit your final results, giving it that real-human-being tweak to catch any errors that the AI might have left in the mix.
OpenTable: Best for restaurant reservations
The OpenTable online restaurant-reservation service company has operated since the internet dark ages, by which I mean 1998. As a result, it has a wide range of restaurant partnerships that make it easy to find cool new locations, reserve a table at them, or read up reviews, all from the comfort of your laptop.
Now, they offer a ChatGPT integration that allows the AI to do even more of the work. You’ll just have to install it and then ask it to find a restaurant that meets your specifications. Sample prompts include questions like “What’s a restaurant with oysters and great cocktails in the Upper West Side NY?” or “Where’s a highly reviewed brunch spot I can take my mom this Mother’s Day in Charleston?”
Once you let ChatGPT know the day, time, and group size for your reservation, that’s all you need to do: When you show up on the day, the reservation will be waiting for you.
WolframAlpha: Best for computation
ChatGPT can do a lot of things, but anything past very basic math has proven to be a challenge for the system. It’s a large language model, after all, and a language-based interface isn’t designed for numbers.
Enter the WolframAlpha tech, which can handle anything from calculus to trigonometry, and accepts input in standard English as well, allowing for the conversational experience a ChatGPT user expects. Wolfram now offers its own plugin to combine its powers with ChatGPT.
This is a great plugin for avoiding the AI hallucinations that ChatGPT tends to make up when it can’t find a good answer. It’s even free for now — but don’t be surprised if a price tag pops up down the road, as the main WolframAlpha system already comes with a “Pro” subscription itself.
Instacart: Best for shopping and food prep
Along with taking out the trash and washing dishes, meal-planning is a fact of life, like it or not. But if you don’t like it, the Instacart plugin for ChatGPT can take (some of) the load off of your own task-avoidant shoulders.
The service will take prompts such as “I have chicken and pasta. What’s a kid-friendly meal I can make, and what else do I need?” or “How can I make an easy carrot cake?” and turn out full recipes. Once you agree on what you want, you can ask the plugin to create an Instacart order that includes them all and buy it, all from your interface.
This is another example of what makes many of these plugins so useful: It takes an existing powerhouse — in this case, Instacart’s knowledge of over 1.5 million products from over 1,100 retail banners — and plugs it into ChatGPT.
Speak: Best for translating languages
Speak offers a language tutoring service that’s powered by its own AI. Pick up the tool’s ChatGPT plugin, and you’ll get both their AI and OpenAI’s language model, both working towards one goal: Helping you translate and communicate in a language you don’t speak.
Prompts can be simple for this service: Just ask ChatGPT how to say a sentence in the language you’re interested in. In response, the Speak plugin will not just give you a basic translation, but will also explain what a formal vs. a casual way to phrase the translation might be, and can serve you an example conversation to help you lock in the best context surrounding that term.
In fact, the Speak AI might even be more powerful without the inclusion of ChatGPT: The app holds an 4.8/5 score on the iOS store, with plenty of rave reviews for the custom language guideance that the AI offers.
WebPilot: Best for talking to webpages
Conversations with inanimate objects are no longer just setups for bad improv: With the WebPilot ChatGPT plugin, you can post an URL and get ChatGPT to respond to you with information solely from that online source.
Simple prompts like “Can you summarize this page? https://tech.co/news/best-chatgpt-plugins-for-2024” can turn into a conversation about specific claims or arguments made within the text of the page. You can ask the tool to give you something specific from the webpage, or you could ask it to give you a modified version that fits your needs better than the real thing.
You can also search the whole internet using the plugin, allowing it to guide you to the most relevant content out there, or enter multiple webpages to receive an article summarizing them all at once.
AskYourPDF: Best for talking to documents
The AskYourPDF plugin will read any PDF you give it and explain the basic details to know about it, from the number of pages to the content of the PDF itself.
Like Speak, this service works as a stand-alone offering without ChatGPT, powered by its original, albeit less famous, AI. The process for using it is a little different, though. Instead of starting with the ChatGPT interface, you’ll need to visit the AskYourPDF website and upload the PDF in question. Only then can you return to ChatGPT, where you can paste in the document ID that correlates to your PDF and ask all the questions you want.
This plugin is a useful tool for students in college or AP English. You’ll be able to parse academic papers much faster with an AI blazing the trail and highlighting the key information to know.
How to Install ChatGPT Plugins
You can play around with ChatGPT for free, but to use any plugins, you’ll need a paid subscription. It’s called ChatGPT Plus, it costs $20 per month, and it gives you access to the most recent model of the service, which is currently ChatGPT-4.
Once you have a ChatGPT Plus account, you can start installing plugins with just a few steps. First, hover over the GPT-4 icon and click “plugins.” This opens up the Plugin section, and you can reach the store by clicking the arrow next to the GPT-4 button. Then, just search for the plugin you want, click “install,” and start familiarizing yourself with its features.
Once installed, the plugin will be fully integrated with ChatGPT, so you can talk to ChatGPT like you normally would, and the plugin will activate itself when its needed.
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