Which AI chatbot is better and smarter?

After months of playing catch-up, Google has finally launched its first commercially generated AI product in the form of Gemini. Available in both free and paid versions, Google Gemini is a chatbot and AI image generator that can also be used as a digital assistant on Android in place of Google Assistant. But can it perform better than other chatbots and convince us to make the switch? Find out in this head-to-head comparison between Gemini and ChatGPT.

The free version of Google’s chatbot relies on the Gemini Pro language model. This is a medium-sized model from the company. The free version of ChatGPT, on the other hand, uses OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 language model. For both chatbots, you can pay to unlock better models and improve output quality.

Since most users won’t pay for an upgrade, let’s first compare Gemini Pro and ChatGPT 3.5. It’s worth noting that Google’s chatbot can access the internet for up-to-date information. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is less knowledgeable and doesn’t know about recent events. You also cannot fact-check the information, so the free version of ChatGPT is not a good choice if you need to ask about the latest information.

Enough disclaimer, let’s see if Gemini and ChatGPT can perform simple coding tasks. First, we asked both chatbots to generate code for a website that displayed the current trading price of the S&P 500 index.

Without hesitation, ChatGPT spit out a block of code along with some instructions to get a free API key from an online stock data provider. Gemini, on the other hand, refuses to complete the task and simply says, “My abilities are limited, so I cannot directly generate the code for you.” I then deleted the chat and sent the same prompt. This time, Gemini generated her two code blocks.

I followed the instructions to save the results of both chatbots and opened them in a web browser. ChatGPT’s output worked initially, but Gemini’s code was unable to produce any results. I immediately fed the error back to Google’s chatbot, which gave me a list of common reasons. As a last resort, I asked them to use the same API as ChatGPT. It failed again, so I gave up at this point.

We then gave both chatbots a known behavior code (ChatGPT’s code) and asked them to fix it. Specifically, instead of just one, we randomly created a list of her 10 stocks and asked her to improve the design. This task eliminates third-party variables from previous tests and allows us to evaluate each chatbot’s unique ability to generate code. The results are as follows.

Overall, both chatbots created nice-looking websites with a list of 10 stocks. However, I had to manually fix ChatGPT’s code in one or two places because invalid API links were being used. This may be due to ChatGPT not being able to access the internet. Gemini, on the other hand, admitted that she read other people’s projects on GitHub before generating her own code. Unless plagiarism is involved, this is something you want to be clear about.

Last year, ChatGPT dominated when it came to coding, and we’re happy to report that Google has stepped up its game. Gemini’s internet search functionality is also very useful, making it a better choice for many research-oriented use cases. However, neither chatbot performs all complex jobs automatically.

The Gemini platform has one trick up its sleeve compared to ChatGPT. It is able to read data from various Google apps. For example, in the screenshot above, I asked Gemini to access my email and calculate how much I spent on food deliveries this year. Once all the individual amounts were listed, a follow-up prompt asked for a table and the data was exported to Google Sheets.

Using ChatGPT, some of this is possible, but it’s far from seamless. Needless to say, you cannot access the ChatGPT plugin as a free user. The Gemini extension, on the other hand, is available for free.

Both Google and OpenAI offer paid versions of their respective chatbots, which give you access to higher quality responses and other features. The main attraction of ChatGPT Plus is the ability to search the Internet via Bing along with the new GPT-4 Turbo language model. Meanwhile, Google’s subscription also gives you access to the Gemini Ultra model, as well as his AI-driven features in Workspace apps like Gmail.

Both subscriptions cost $20 per month, but Gemini is better from a value standpoint. A Google One AI Premium subscription also includes benefits like 2TB of cloud storage and free VPN. ChatGPT’s subscription is charged on his first day, but is also available as a free trial for 2 months.

Of course, value is not as important as quality of results. So let’s evaluate Gemini Ultra and ChatGPT 4 and see which one comes out on top.

Starting with factual questions, I asked both chatbots which countries would get the Exynos version of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 smartphone. Unsurprisingly, both chatbots responded perfectly and also specified the countries that would receive the Exynos variant. This round can be considered a draw.

Now let’s test the vision capabilities of both chatbots. I uploaded images of his four framed artworks and asked both chatbots if they could interpret the meaning behind them. They answered:

Gemini clearly stumbled a bit here, reacting as if the image were a square grid rather than a horizontal sequence. Still, we come to the same (correct) conclusion as ChatGPT, and that’s ultimately what matters. However, here’s the twist. For the results above, we used the free version of Gemini. ChatGPT does not provide such image analysis unless you have an active subscription.

As of this writing, Google has not enabled Gemini Ultra’s multimodal features even for paying customers, so a direct comparison with GPT-4 is not possible.

So far, we have found that both Gemini and ChatGPT provide accurate responses and exhibit similar levels of intelligence. However, if you’re not ready to spend $20 per month on an AI platform, Google’s chatbots offer even more functionality. The ability to search the Internet is a game changer in itself.

Gemini also offers a more seamless experience on Android as it can be set as your default assistant. You can then perform basic tasks like setting an alarm instead of Google Assistant. It is currently under active development, but we expect it to become even more powerful in the coming months and years.

That being said, if you want a completely hands-free chatbot experience, the pendulum swings back in ChatGPT’s favor. ChatGPT app offers an unparalleled voice chat mode. We offer an immersive conversation experience like no other.

You may not want to hear it, but the answer to which chatbot you should use ultimately comes down to your individual needs. For example, creators will find value in her ChatGPT and its generous character limit, while creators within the Google ecosystem are probably better off using Gemini. Which AI chatbot do you want to use?