Hugging Face, a New York City-based startup, has launched third-party customizable Hugging Chat Assistants. This free product allows users of Hugging Chat to create their own AI chatbots with specific capabilities. Unlike OpenAI’s custom GPT Builder, Hugging Chat Assistants do not require a paid subscription. Users can easily build their own personal Hugging Face Chat Assistant in just two clicks. The big difference between Hugging Chat Assistant and GPT Builder is that Hugging Chat Assistant allows users to choose from several open source language models to power their AI Assistant. Hugging Face has also created a central repository of third-party customized Hugging Chat Assistants, similar to OpenAI’s GPT Store. Some users believe that Hugging Chat Assistants are better than GPTs due to their customizability and the fact that they are free. However, there are areas where custom GPTs outperform Hugging Chat Assistants, such as web search and logo generation. The open source community is rapidly catching up to closed rivals like OpenAI, as seen with the release of Mistral’s open source model, Miqu.
