ChatGPT vs Meta AI: ChatGPT gives smarter answers, Meta AI is free inside WhatsApp

Which is better, ChatGPT or Meta AI?

ChatGPT is better on measured quality, but Meta's newest model lands between the two ChatGPT tiers. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (version 4.3.2, read on 12 October 2026), Muse Spark 1.3 scores 48. GPT-6 Luna, the model that OpenAI lists for ChatGPT Free, scores 38. Plus gets GPT-6.1 Sol at 52 and GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI's top model, at 53.

The free plans are even closer, and the answer hangs on a version number that Meta hasn't published. OpenAI lists GPT-6 Luna for ChatGPT Free and Go. Meta's App Store listing says "Meta AI is built with Muse Spark, the latest natively multimodal reasoning model from Meta Superintelligence Labs." It doesn't say which one. The last version that Meta confirmed in the app was Muse Spark 1.1, in July 2026, and it scores 34.

Muse Spark 1.3 came out on 2 September 2026, and Meta gave it to developers first. So the free Meta AI is either 4 points behind the free ChatGPT or 10 points ahead of it. That depends on whether 1.3 is in your app yet.

Meta wins on cost and on speed. Artificial Analysis blends each price at a 7:2:1 mix of cached input, fresh input and output. On that basis it costs $0.78 per million tokens to run Muse Spark 1.3 and $1.47 to run GPT-6.1 Sol. The Meta model also writes 121 tokens a second, and the OpenAI one writes 65. You won't see those prices in either app. What they show is that Meta has built a cheaper and faster model, and it's only 4 points behind.

Where does ChatGPT beat Meta AI, test by test?

ChatGPT's model wins on coding and on getting facts right, and Meta's wins on office tasks and science code. Here are the two top models side by side, as Artificial Analysis listed them on 12 October 2026, each at its highest tested effort:

Coding is where the gap is widest. On Terminal-Bench 4.0, which tests how well an AI agent can work in a terminal, the OpenAI model scores 56% and the Meta one 33%. For everyday questions the knowledge row matters more, though. AA-Omniscience gives a model points for knowing an answer and takes them away when it makes one up, and on this one OpenAI leads 42 to 25. If you ask a chatbot for facts that you can't easily check, that's the row to weigh.

The Meta model wins two of the tests. On GDPval-AA, an Elo rating for real work tasks in many jobs, it leads 1,681 to 1,592. On SciCode it leads 59% to 54%. Long documents are a tie: both of them can read up to 1M tokens, and both score 83% on AA-LCR. GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI's top model at 53, is on ChatGPT Plus too, and Pro gets more of it. Meta has nothing above Muse Spark 1.3 in this data.

Is Meta AI free, and how much does ChatGPT cost?

Meta AI is free, and so is ChatGPT's basic plan. Meta's Meta One announcement of September 2026 says "Meta AI will still be free for everyday use," and it sells more image and video room on top. OpenAI's cheapest paid plan is Go at $8. US prices from the App Store, OpenAI's pricing page and Meta's newsroom, read on 12 October 2026:

The two companies sell you different things at $20. With ChatGPT Plus you get a stronger model. With Meta One Premium you get more images and video, and Meta warns that "Plans, benefits, pricing, and availability may vary by region, by app, and by account." Meta reported "15 million subscriptions and trials to-date" across every Meta One plan, not only the AI ones.

Muse is a separate agent app from Meta, and it's the closer match to the paid ChatGPT tiers. Meta launched it in the US on 8 September 2026. It runs on Muse Spark, and you can reach it "directly in WhatsApp". Axios reported a free tier plus $20 and $100 subscriptions. On the OpenAI side, the nearest thing to it is Dot, "your always-on agent", which OpenAI lists only on Pro. ChatGPT Plus vs Pro covers the three Pro tiers.

Is ChatGPT or Meta AI better for images, video and voice?

Meta AI is the more generous of the two if you want free pictures and video. Its App Store listing offers to "Create and edit images", and Meta says its image and video tools are "powered by Muse models". If you pay $7.99 for Meta One Core, you get more of both. OpenAI's pricing page lists "Limited image creation" on ChatGPT Free and "Unlimited and faster image creation" only on Pro, and it lists no video line on any plan.

Both of them talk back on the free plan. Meta's App Store listing says that its voice conversations support 13 languages. OpenAI gives you a limited amount of voice on ChatGPT Free, and Go adds more of it.

Neither of them publishes a daily image count for its free plan. We also found no independent test that runs the two image models on the same prompts, so we won't say which one makes the better picture. ChatGPT's image generation limit collects what OpenAI does say about its caps.

Can you use ChatGPT inside WhatsApp like Meta AI?

Only in Europe. Meta AI is built into WhatsApp, but ChatGPT was switched off there on 15 January 2026, after Meta barred general purpose AI assistants from its Business API. It came back on 13 July 2026 for numbers in the European Economic Area, under an EU antitrust order. Everywhere else you'll need the ChatGPT app or chatgpt.com. Meta AI has gaps too. WhatsApp's help page says it's "currently only available in limited countries" and may not reach you yet "even if others in your country have access." ChatGPT not working on WhatsApp has the full timeline.

Reach is the strongest card that Meta AI has. Meta said in October 2025 that "More than a billion monthly actives already use Meta AI", and Mark Zuckerberg told analysts in July 2026 that WhatsApp is its leading surface. OpenAI counted 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users in its DevDay recap on 29 September 2026. The two counts aren't over the same window, so a survey is the cleaner check. In February 2026 Pew found that 44% of US adults use ChatGPT, and 14% of them use Meta AI. AI chatbot market share lines up every yardstick.

Which is more private, ChatGPT or Meta AI?

ChatGPT is more private, because it has a training switch and Meta AI doesn't. In ChatGPT, Settings, Data controls, "Improve the model for everyone" stops your chats from training OpenAI's models. Meta offers no such setting in the US, and since 16 December 2025 your Meta AI chats help pick the ads you see. The rules for a US account, from each company's own pages as of October 2026:

Europe gets different rules. Meta's ad change doesn't apply in the EU, the UK or South Korea, TechCrunch reported, and people in the EU get a form to object to Meta training on their data. OpenAI says personalized ads aren't available in the EEA or Switzerland at first. The WhatsApp rule is a narrow one. Meta's October 2025 post says "interactions with Meta AI on WhatsApp will not be used to personalize experiences across different accounts" unless you've added that WhatsApp account to Accounts Center. The OpenAI ads help page says "We do not share your conversations with ChatGPT with advertisers" and "Ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers." Turn off AI training has the switch for every major assistant.

Should you pick ChatGPT or Meta AI?

Pick ChatGPT for work and facts, and Meta AI for quick help where you already chat. Here's the split by situation:

If you want both of these model families in one chat, Whizi Powerhouse at $49.99 a month carries Muse Spark 1.3 and every GPT model, GPT-6 Astra included, with a side by side compare for the same prompt. A Muse Spark message costs 5 credits and a GPT-6.1 Sol message 10, out of 10,000 a month. Whizi Pro at $29.99 has GPT-6.1 Sol but not Muse Spark. Whizi isn't inside WhatsApp, and it doesn't carry Meta's video tools, so if that's why you use Meta AI, keep Meta AI.