AI tools
Five AI Things You Can Now Do for Free
GPT-6 in free ChatGPT, Claude's slides and docs on the Free plan, new ChatGPT voices, Krea 3's box edit and DeepSeek's new model. What each one does, where to find it, and the catch that comes with free.
October is the month the free plans got good. OpenAI put GPT-6 into free ChatGPT, Claude took its slides, docs and design tools out of beta and put them on every plan, and three other upgrades landed that you can use today without paying anything.
Here's all five, ranked by how much they change what a free account can actually do:
- GPT-6 builds you a small working tool inside ChatGPT
- Claude makes slides, docs and designs on the Free plan
- ChatGPT's voice mode got new voices and better accents
- Krea 3 edits one part of a photo and leaves the rest alone
- DeepSeek put its latest model into its free app
1. GPT-6 now builds you a working tool right inside ChatGPT
On 7 October OpenAI announced GPT-6 and Intelligent UI for everyone, and the rollout reached the Free and Go tiers the next day. The headline feature is what OpenAI calls Intelligent UI: instead of answering in a wall of text, ChatGPT can now answer with buttons, forms, charts and small interactive tools.
The part I'd try first is asking it to build you something. OpenAI's own examples are "a calculator to explore how savings could grow, a bill splitter for dinner with friends, or a game you can play in the conversation." You type the job, and a working tool appears in the chat that you're able to click and change.
What it requires: a free ChatGPT account. One thing worth knowing: free and Go users get GPT-6 Luna, the lighter of the two GPT-6 models, while paid plans get GPT-6 Sol. Both are tuned for everyday conversation, but they aren't the same model. I explained how OpenAI's Sol and Luna tiers differ in my breakdown of GPT-5.6's three tiers, and the same naming carries over.
2. Claude makes slides, docs and designs on the Free plan
Anthropic's 8 October announcement took the beta label off Docs, Slides and Design and put them "on every Claude plan, including Free." So now you're able to build a presentation deck, a document or a design just by chatting with it, and download the deck as PowerPoint or PDF, or send it straight to Google Slides as an editable file.
According to Anthropic, people had already made more than 45 million docs, decks and designs in Claude before this announcement. I walked through the exact prompt I use for a ten-slide deck in Claude makes your PowerPoint on the free plan, so start there if you want a deck today.
What it requires: a free Claude account. The two new tools in the same announcement, Dashboards and Motion, aren't free. Dashboards is in beta on paid plans and Motion is in beta on Team and Enterprise, so don't go looking for them on Free.
3. ChatGPT's voice mode got new voices and better accents
OpenAI's release notes for 15 October roll out GPT-Live-1.1 in ChatGPT Voice "with more natural accents across languages." The new voices include options for French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Mexican Spanish, plus a new English voice called Bubbie. You pick one under Settings, then Voice.
What it requires: a free account, with a limit. OpenAI's ChatGPT Voice help page lists the Free row as "Limited access to GPT-Live-1.1 Quip. Limits may change." Quip is the mini version of the model, and usage is counted over a rolling 24 hours. Fine for practising a language on the bus. It's not enough to replace a paid plan if you talk to it for hours.
4. Krea 3 edits one part of a photo and leaves the rest alone
Krea 3 is Krea's new image editing model, and the feature I like is regional editing. You draw a box on any photo, say what you want to change inside it, and Krea redraws only that box. In Krea's own words, it "leaves the rest of the image as it was."
This is the kind of edit that's easy to give up on in ChatGPT, because the whole image shifts when you only wanted the shirt a different colour. If you run a small business, that's your product shots: change the label, the backdrop or the colour of one item without reshooting.
What it requires: a free Krea sign-up. Krea's free plan runs on a daily allowance of compute units rather than unlimited edits, so it's worth checking how far it stretches on Krea's pricing page before you plan a whole product catalogue around it.
5. DeepSeek put its latest model into its free app
On 17 October DeepSeek released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017, and its announcement says the model is "now live on our website, app, and API." DeepSeek's chat app has been free since it launched in January 2025, so the new model's the one you get when you open it.
DeepSeek's headline demos are things it built from a single request, including "a web-based racing game" and a 3D model of the Forbidden City.
What it requires: a free DeepSeek account. This is the one on the list I'd be careful with. The racing game is DeepSeek's own demo, picked from its best runs, so don't expect a finished game on your first try. And before you paste client data or anything private into any free chat app, read where that data is stored. If you want DeepSeek inside a coding setup instead, I covered DeepSeek's free version of Claude Code separately.
What do these five add up to?
A year ago, the honest advice was that free AI plans were only trials. You got a taste, then hit a wall. That's changed this month. A free ChatGPT account now builds small tools on demand, a free Claude account makes the decks and documents most people were paying for, and the image and voice upgrades sit on free tiers too.
The catch is the same on all of them, because free comes with a lighter model or a usage limit, so use free to find out which of these you'd actually use every day, and only pay for the one you keep hitting the ceiling on.
FAQ
Do free ChatGPT users get GPT-6?
Yes. OpenAI rolled GPT-6 out to the Free and Go tiers from 8 October 2026. Free and Go users get GPT-6 Luna, the lighter GPT-6 model, while Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise get GPT-6 Sol.
Can I make PowerPoint slides with Claude for free?
Yes. Since 8 October 2026, Claude's Slides, Docs and Design tools are on every Claude plan, including Free. Decks download as PowerPoint or PDF, or export to Google Slides as editable files.
Is ChatGPT Voice free to use?
Partly. Free users get limited access to GPT-Live-1.1 Quip, the mini version of the voice model, counted over a rolling 24 hours. OpenAI says the limits may change.
What does Krea 3's regional editing do?
Krea 3's regional editing lets you draw a box on a photo and describe the change. Krea redraws only inside the box and leaves the rest of the image as it was.
Is the DeepSeek app free?
Yes. DeepSeek's chat app has been free since January 2025, and its 17 October 2026 release put the new DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 model in the app, on the website and in the API.
