Top 10 AI tools: 2023 edition

Using artificial intelligence-enabled tools at work has become similar to using email, and while some of you may want to oppose this statement, the latest DeskTime data on 2023’s top 10 AI tools supports it. 

We all love the help that AI can give us. And why shouldn’t we? Turning to AI for ideas instead of procrastinating for hours is not only in your best interest but very likely in your employer’s as well.

Being a team that loves deep dives into data, DeskTime decided to find out the top 10 AI-enabled tools DeskTime users were putting to use throughout 2023. Before you scroll further to see the list, can you guess which AI-powered tools and apps DeskTime users loved the most last year? Give it a try!

The 10 most popular AI tools of 2023

Our team analyzed AI-enabled app usage among 101,822 DeskTime users who are full-time employees. We cross-referenced a list of 5000 AI applications with the app usage data from our users throughout 2023 and ended up with the most popular AI tools of 2023. 

Whether you’ve placed your bets or not, here are the top 10 AI tools in 2023 among DeskTime time tracking software users:

#	AI tool	Hours per DeskTime user in 2023
1	ChatGPT	87
2	Canva	37
3	GitHub	33
4	Bing.com	15
5	DeepL	5.5
6	OpenAI developer platform	1.22
7	Amazon Web Services	0.68
8	Google Chrome	0.64
9	Replit	0.47
10	App Store	0.19

We know there’s one aspect we need to acknowledge – not all of the top runners are AI-only products. To ensure they have an AI component, we used a list of 5000 AI apps provided by Futurepedia. What can be learned from seeing such apps as Google Chrome or App Store on the list is that most tools are joining the AI wagon and implementing it to level up their offerings.

Now, let’s check out some of the most-used AI apps of 2023.

ChatGPT

Seeing ChatGPT as the number 1 AI tool of 2023 is not really a surprise, is it? While there’s no doubt that ChatGPT is used daily by many employees across the globe, DeskTime’s data strongly confirms the assumption. 

The world was swept off its orbit by ChatGPT at the end of 2022, and the AI app quickly became the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Trends eventually wear off, but DeskTime’s data shows that ChatGPT kept its status as THE AI app of the year, being used for 87 hours or 10.87 working days* per person in 2023.

What’s even more interesting is that, according to DeskTime, workers in India spent, on average, 16 working days in 2023 using ChatGPT for different purposes, topping the regional charts of ChatGPT use among DeskTime users. 

* A standard 8-hour working day

Canva

To us, #2 on the list was a bit of a surprise. Canva was the leading AI-enabled app among DeskTime users in the U.S., beating even the ultimate AI king – ChatGPT. And yet, in the global AI apps battle, Canva took the silver medal of 2023 with 37 hours or 4.64 working days per person.

Launched in 2013, Canva earned global love quite quickly due to its ease of use and the ability to turn everyone into a wannabe graphic designer. In March 2023, the app introduced “a colossal suite of new brand management products and AI-powered design tools focused on helping entire workplaces streamline their content creation process,” as the Verge news story said. No wonder why Canva made it so high on the AI-enabled apps list.

GitHub

With 33 hours or 4.12 working days per person in 2023, the bronze of our AI apps goes to GitHub – an online software developer platform. GitHub has about 100M users worldwide, and over 90% of Fortune 100 companies use the platform.

Regarding GitHub and AI, the platform offers GitHub Copilot, or as they call it – the “world’s most widely adopted AI developer tool”. It’s an AI pair programmer offering auto suggestions as developer codes and turning natural language prompts into coding suggestions based on the project’s context and style conventions. Developers love it as it saves some headaches. Bosses love it as the Copilot helps employees work faster. I guess that’s how you land the third place on the list of top 10 AI tools for 2023.

Bing.com

Another surprise was seeing Bing.com so high on our list. However, after diving deeper into the Microsoft-owned search engine’s AI functionalities, it turns out there are plenty. 

Bing.com uses AI to provide better search results. There’s also AI-powered Bing Chat, Bing Image Creator, Bing Compose, and other AI-powered features. DeskTime users spent 15 hours or 1.88 working days per person in 2023 using Bing.com’s AI power.

DeepL

I’ll go into a personal chapter here and throw my two cents on the #5 AI app of the 2023 list. Last year, I was looking for a new translating tool as the good old Google Translate didn’t always fit my needs. My friend suggested DeepL, and I fell in love with it. Hence, my personal DeepL usage hours definitely add to the average of 5.5 hours per person in 2023. 

Looking into the AI functionalities of this neural machine translation service launched in 2017, DeepL offers an AI-powered writing companion, DeepL Write. Not all of us are born writers. Plus, sometimes the words just don’t flow. And that’s when some AI comes in handy. 

OpenAI developer platform

Founded in 2015, the U.S.-based AI research organization OpenAI stands behind the AI spring. While we all know and use their absolute star product, ChatGPT, OpenAI’s developer platform ranks #6 on the AI apps list of 2023. 

The platform is a hub for developers, researchers, and organizations to access various OpenAI APIs and tools. These APIs allow users to integrate cutting-edge AI models developed by OpenAI into their applications, enabling tasks such as natural language processing, image generation, and more.

What can we expect from AI-enabled tools in the workplace in 2024?

In 2023, we saw that AI-powered apps and tools can significantly benefit the way we work – be it writing, crafting designs, or coding. There’s no doubt that we can not only expect new developments of the already existing AI tools but also more new AI apps appearing. 

The big discussion regarding AI in the workplace is, of course, whether AI could substitute jobs, resulting in employee layoffs. There’s no definitive answer, but one is clear – AI is already changing work as we know it. 

In the best traditions of AI tools’ use, we asked ChatGPT what we could expect from AI tools in 2024. Here are some of its predictions:

• AI models for generating and understanding human language will become more sophisticated.
• AI algorithms for image and video analysis are expected to advance further.
• There will likely be a growing emphasis on developing AI tools that prioritize ethical considerations, fairness, transparency, and accountability to address concerns related to bias, privacy, and misuse of AI technology.
• AI systems that can effectively collaborate with humans in various tasks, such as decision-making, creativity, and problem-solving, are expected to emerge, leading to new opportunities for human-AI partnership.

However, even ChatGPT acknowledges that unexpected breakthroughs in AI apps and tools can always occur, impacting the industry’s overall development. I guess that’s the beauty of AI – you never know what to expect.