Artificial Intelligence-based chatbots are currently the talk of town in the AI universe. Two of the most prominent chatbots are ChatGPT and Google Gemini (formerly Bard), created by OpenAI and Google, respectively. Both are free to use and offer a wide range of features. However, it can be challenging to determine which chatbot can provide a better experience. Today, we will compare the free versions of ChatGPT and Google Gemini to find out which one is better.
Accessibility
ChatGPT and Google Gemini can be accessed worldwide via their websites or apps. While ChatGPT has had its app available since last year, the Gemini app was recently made available by Google when it rebranded Bard.
However, because Gemini is made by Google, it is well integrated within the Android operating system compared to ChatGPT. Gemini is more easily accessible on Android, such as by swiping through the corner of the screen or tapping and holding the home button or the power button, which is something ChatGPT cannot do on Android as it can only be used via its app. Due to Google’s proprietary OS advantage, Gemini takes the winner status for how easily accessible the chatbot is on Android.
If you are on iOS, ChatGPT is accessible via an app, while Gemini is accessible via the Google app. Finally, through websites, we feel Gemini has a better user interface that looks more modern, while ChatGPT adopts a more minimal and simpler look.
Features & Performance
ChatGPT and Gemini are powered by the companies’ respective large language models (LLMs) and have similar features. Both of them can handle coding and provide you with information from the internet. However, ChatGPT 3.5, the model that’s free to use, has access to information based on the trained data, which has a cutoff period of January 2022. This means that ChatGPT can only provide you with information that’s available online till January 2022, and it won’t have knowledge of events that occurred post that period.
To get access to ChatGPT 4, which has access to all the latest information, you’ll have to pay. On the other hand, Google Gemini which is also free to use, can provide you with all the latest information and also use it in its answers for a better context understanding. This makes Gemini a much better pick regarding which chatbot has access to more information.
Both of them have a feature where you can talk to the chatbot and have the replies being spoken to you. This is where ChatGPT gets a slight advantage because its voice model sounds more natural and fluent with a human-like dialect and tone, while Gemini still sounds slightly robotic. Both of them have a reply time that’s similar when we talk of voice replies.
Read More: Google Gemini On Android First Impression: Why I Am Sticking To Google Assistant For Now
Talking of the reply time when texting, ChatGPT is quicker and spits out replies much faster. On the other hand, Gemini takes around 4 to 5 seconds, most likely because it indexes a lot of information it has access to, while ChatGPT only has to go through the limited amount of data it has been trained on.
There’s an image generation feature Gemini recently gained access to where it can create a photo based on the prompt you provide to the chatbot. However, you do not get this feature on ChatGPT as it’s only available through the paid subscription of ChatGPT 4.0.
Then, both of them did a pretty good job holding the conversation while keeping the context intact. They could provide me with content based on the previous chat I had with them without any issues. There were some weird responses from Gemini in some cases, such as when I asked it to write a news article, but the second time I gave it that prompt, it worked fine.
We also noticed that ChatGPT was surpassing Gemini in some areas regarding the quality of the answer, such as when the question didn’t require the latest information in the answer. These can be classified under general queries, such as when asking to create a workout plan, a recipe for a dish, helping with an article on a general topic, writing an application, and more. While Gemini was accurate with these queries, too, the speed at which ChatGPT gave the responses was unbeatable.
Both chatbots also offer users the ability to stop them from collecting your chat data for training purposes. Further, Gemini has another advantage over ChatGPT, and that’s the extension’s support, where it can access information from other Google services such as YouTube, Flights, Maps, Gmail, etc., and give you personalised replies. Extensions are also available on ChatGPT, but only with the paid subscription.
Verdict
Based on the comparison above, Google Gemini emerges as a clear winner, thanks to access to the latest information along with better accessibility, and more features. While ChatGPT is quicker with its replies and sounds more human-like in its voice responses, it still misses out on some vital features that Google Gemini handles in a much better manner.