Quick one that matters if you ever worry about AI getting too expensive.
A new model called GLM-5.2 was just released for free. Anyone can use it, and companies can even run it on their own computers at no license cost. The interesting part: on certain coding tasks it scored higher than GPT-5.5, one of the big paid models, while costing roughly one sixth as much to run.
In plain terms, the free and open side of AI is catching up fast to the expensive paid side. That is good news for normal people. More competition usually means better tools and lower prices for everyone.
You do not need to switch anything today. The takeaway is simpler: you are not stuck paying premium prices to get strong AI. The cheap and free options are getting genuinely good.
Have you tried any free AI tools that surprised you with how good they were? Tell us which one below.