tech
I tried China's buzzy free AI. The wait was painful, but the answers impressed me.
Business Insider tried out the hottest new Chinese AI model by asking it to write an email, serve as a shopping aid, plan a trip, and create a poster.
TL;DR
- GLM-5.2 is a free, open-source AI model from China praised for its coding capabilities and large context window.
- It supports a 1 million-token context window, comparable to leading models like GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8.
- Testing revealed noticeable slowness and capacity issues, requiring patience from users.
- The model performed well on tasks like writing an email, providing shopping recommendations, and planning a trip.
- Design generation was problematic, with an older version processing prompts in Chinese and the newer version producing less polished results.
- Despite its flaws, GLM-5.2 offers impressive capabilities for a free model, matching expensive competitors in many everyday tasks.
- Improvements in reliability and wait times could make GLM-5.2 a strong alternative to paid AI subscriptions.