---

Spotlight: Top 12 AI API Services with Free Plans

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world of software development and enabling businesses to create innovative and intelligent applications. However, building AI solutions from scratch can be costly, time-consuming, and complex. That’s why many developers and businesses are turning to AI API services, which provide ready-made and easy-to-use AI functionalities through web-based interfaces.

AI API services can help you add features such as natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition, machine learning, and more to your applications without requiring any AI expertise or infrastructure. You can simply integrate these services with your existing code and data, and let the AI do the magic for you.

But how do you choose the best AI API service for your needs? And how much does it cost to use them? To help you answer these questions, we have compiled a list of the top 12 AI API services that offer a monthly free service level. These services are:

• Qloo: Qloo is a cultural AI service that can predict and understand consumer preferences and behavior. It can analyze hundreds of millions of cultural entities, such as brands, music, movies, and fashion, and provide personalized recommendations and insights based on demographics, geolocation, and real-time popularity. Qloo offers a free plan that allows you to make up to 10,000 API calls per month¹.
• Amazon Polly: Amazon Polly is a text-to-speech service that can convert any text into natural-sounding and realistic speech. It uses advanced deep learning technology to synthesize human-like voices in dozens of languages and dialects. It also supports different speaking styles, such as newscaster and conversational, to suit different use cases. Amazon Polly offers a free tier that gives you 5 million characters per month for the first 12 months².
• Amazon Rekognition: Amazon Rekognition is an image and video analysis service that can detect and recognize objects, faces, text, scenes, and activities in visual media. It can also perform facial analysis, facial comparison, and facial search, as well as identify inappropriate or unsafe content. Amazon Rekognition offers a free tier that gives you 5,000 images per month and 1,000 minutes of video per month for the first 12 months³.
• Google Cloud Natural Language: Google Cloud Natural Language is a natural language processing service that can analyze and understand text in multiple languages. It can perform tasks such as sentiment analysis, entity analysis, syntax analysis, content classification, and entity sentiment analysis. It can also extract information from unstructured documents, such as invoices and receipts. Google Cloud Natural Language offers a free tier that gives you 5,000 text records per month⁴.
• Google Cloud Vision: Google Cloud Vision is a computer vision service that can analyze and annotate images and videos. It can perform tasks such as object detection, face detection, text detection, logo detection, landmark detection, and label detection. It can also detect explicit content, crop hints, and web entities. Google Cloud Vision offers a free tier that gives you 1,000 images per month⁵.
• IBM Watson Assistant: IBM Watson Assistant is a conversational AI service that can help you build chatbots and virtual assistants for your applications. It can understand natural language, maintain context, and handle complex dialogs. It can also integrate with various channels, such as web, mobile, messaging, and voice. IBM Watson Assistant offers a free plan that allows you to create one assistant with up to 10,000 messages per month.
• IBM Watson Speech to Text: IBM Watson Speech to Text is a speech recognition service that can transcribe audio into text. It can recognize speech in multiple languages and dialects, and adapt to different domains and acoustic environments. It can also identify speakers, keywords, and emotions, and provide timestamps and confidence scores. IBM Watson Speech to Text offers a free plan that gives you 500 minutes of audio per month.
• Clarifai: Clarifai is a machine learning service that can help you build custom models for image and video analysis. It can also provide pre-trained models for various use cases, such as face detection, color recognition, food recognition, and moderation. Clarifai offers a free plan that allows you to make up to 5,000 API calls per month and train up to 1,000 custom concepts.
• Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services: Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services is a collection of AI services that can help you add cognitive features to your applications. It includes services for vision, speech, language, decision, and web search. Some of the popular services are Face, Computer Vision, Text Analytics, Translator, and Bing Search. Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services offers a free tier that gives you a certain number of transactions per month for each service.
• OpenAI: OpenAI is a research organization that aims to create and promote artificial intelligence that can benefit humanity. It also provides an API that allows you to access its powerful and general-purpose AI models, such as GPT-3, which can generate natural language text for various tasks and domains. OpenAI offers a free plan that gives you access to the Playground, where you can experiment with the API and its models.
• Wit.ai: Wit.ai is a natural language processing service that can help you create conversational interfaces for your applications. It can understand user inputs, extract intents and entities, and provide responses. It can also learn from user feedback and improve over time. Wit.ai offers a free plan that allows you to create unlimited apps and make unlimited API calls.
• DeepL: DeepL is a machine translation service that can translate text between 26 languages. It uses neural networks and deep learning to produce high-quality and natural-sounding translations. It can also preserve the formatting and style of the original text. DeepL offers a free plan that gives you up to 500,000 characters per month.

These are some of the best AI API services that offer a monthly free service level. They can help you enhance your products and services with artificial intelligence, without breaking the bank or requiring extensive technical skills. Try them out and see what they can do for you!

Here is a bullet point list and citations with links

• Qloo: A cultural AI service that can predict and understand consumer preferences and behavior¹.
• Amazon Polly: A text-to-speech service that can convert any text into natural-sounding and realistic speech².
• Amazon Rekognition: An image and video analysis service that can detect and recognize objects, faces, text, scenes, and activities in visual media³.
• Google Cloud Natural Language: A natural language processing service that can analyze and understand text in multiple languages⁴.
• Google Cloud Vision: A computer vision service that can analyze and annotate images and videos.
• IBM Watson Assistant: A conversational AI service that can help you build chatbots and virtual assistants for your applications.
• IBM Watson Speech to Text: A speech recognition service that can transcribe audio into text.
• Clarifai: A machine learning service that can help you build custom models for image and video analysis.
• Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services: A collection of AI services that can help you add cognitive features to your applications.
• OpenAI: An API that allows you to access powerful and general-purpose AI models, such as GPT-3, which can generate natural language text for various tasks and domains.
• Wit.ai: A natural language processing service that can help you create conversational interfaces for your applications.
• DeepL: A machine translation service that can translate text between 26 languages.

¹: Qloo
²: Amazon Polly
³: Amazon Rekognition
⁴: Google Cloud Natural Language
: Google Cloud Vision

(1) Bulleted lists – APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/lists/bulleted.
(2) How can I link a numbered bullet point to a sentence that references …. https://superuser.com/questions/1116828/how-can-i-link-a-numbered-bullet-point-to-a-sentence-that-references-that-bullet.
(3) Elements to ‘look like’ a bullet point list inside an anchor link. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3874602/elements-to-look-like-a-bullet-point-list-inside-an-anchor-link.
(4) Add bullets to text to make a list in Word for the web. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-bullets-to-text-to-make-a-list-in-word-for-the-web-7bd7724f-a329-463c-8d46-0346181a840e.

Further Reading:
(1) Top Free Artificial Intelligence (AI) APIs in 2023 – Slashdot. https://slashdot.org/software/artificial-intelligence-ai-apis/free-version/.
(2) 8 Top AI API Platforms to Build Super-Intelligent Apps – Geekflare. https://geekflare.com/ai-apis/.
(3) Best Free Artificial Intelligence (AI) APIs – SourceForge. https://sourceforge.net/software/artificial-intelligence-ai-apis/free-version/.
(4) 7 Best Artificial Intelligence APIs To Enhance Your Product – getstream.io. https://getstream.io/blog/artificial-intelligence-api/.
(5) 10 Companies That Offer AI as a Service (AIaaS) – HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/ai-as-a-service.