Welcome to the first issue of About.chat Weekly. Every week, we surface what's happening in the world of AI chatbots — tools, trends, and data from our database of over 100 chatbot profiles.
This week: Slack got a major AI upgrade, and our database reveals something interesting about how the chatbot market is priced.
This Week's Lead
Salesforce Gave Slack 30 AI Features. Here's What Matters.
Salesforce just announced 30 new AI features for Slack, including reusable Skills, MCP integration, and automated meeting transcription. Most of them you won't touch. A few could actually change how you work. We broke down which ones are worth your attention — and what to test first.
Also Worth Reading
AI Chatbot Pricing Index: April 2026
https://about.chat/article/chatbot-pricing-index-april-2026/
We tracked pricing across 25 major AI chatbots. The median paid tier is $20/month — but the range runs from $0 to $200+. See the full breakdown.
Americans Are Using More AI Tools — and Trusting Them Less
https://about.chat/article/ai-adoption-trust-gap-2026/
New survey data shows AI tool adoption is up, but trust in AI outputs is declining. What's driving the gap.
Why AI Chatbots Give Bad Personal Advice (And What to Do About It)
https://about.chat/article/why-ai-chatbots-bad-personal-advice/
A practical look at why AI chatbots consistently underperform on personal advice — and the three questions to ask before acting on any AI recommendation.
Stat of the Week
70% of AI chatbots are freemium.
Of the 112 chatbots in our database, 78 use a freemium model — you get meaningful functionality for free, with paid tiers unlocking more. Only 14% are free with no paid option, and another 14% are paid-only.
What this means: the market has largely converged on freemium as the default. If a chatbot is charging you upfront with no free trial, it's increasingly the exception.
Browse all 112 chatbot profiles: https://chatbot.gallery/
Profile Spotlight: Duolingo Max
Most people know Duolingo for its green owl and streak notifications. Duolingo Max is different — it adds GPT-4-powered conversation practice, so you can roleplay scenarios in Spanish, French, Japanese, or six other languages and get instant feedback on accuracy. It's $29.99/month (or free with the base app for basic lessons), and it's one of the more focused AI chatbot use cases we've seen: it does one thing and does it better than most alternatives.
If you've ever wanted to practice a language without the awkwardness of a human tutor, this is worth a look.
That's it for Issue #1. If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe at https://about.chat.
— The About.chat Team