Ultimate AI Assistant Showdown: ChatGPT vs. Google Bard vs. Microsoft Bing

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Ease of Use and Features
• Helpfulness and Completeness
• Accuracy
• Creativity
• Speed
• Conclusion and Final Scores

Introduction to AI Assistants: Bard, Bing AI, and ChatGPT

Artificial intelligence (AI) assistants have seen rapid advancement recently, with several new models released that aim to understand natural language, answer questions, summarize content, generate text and more. In this blog post, we will provide an overview and comparison of three leading AI assistants: Google's Bard, Microsoft's Bing AI, and Anthropic's ChatGPT.

About the AI Assistants

Google Bard is an experimental conversational AI service launched in 2023. It utilizes Google's LaMDA language model and aims to provide helpful, harmless and honest responses. Bard can answer questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect assumptions and reject inappropriate requests. Microsoft Bing AI incorporates a version of Anthropic's ChatGPT model into the Bing search engine. It allows users to have conversations with the AI assistant by asking questions and getting detailed answers with cited sources. Bing AI aims to provide informative responses powered by web search and ChatGPT's natural language capabilities. ChatGPT is an AI assistant created by Anthropic focused on understanding natural language and generating human-like text responses. The free ChatGPT 3.5 uses a 2021 dataset, while the paid ChatGPT 4 subscription includes additional features like web access for more recent information.

Testing Criteria

To compare the capabilities of these AI assistants, we evaluated them across five key criteria:

• Ease of use and features
• Helpfulness and completeness of responses
• Accuracy of provided information
• Creativity in generating text and images
• Speed of response generation

Ease of Use and Features of Bard, Bing AI and ChatGPT

When it comes to ease of use and built-in features, Google's Bard has a clear advantage. Since most internet users already have a Google account, signing in to use Bard is simple with an existing Gmail login. Bard also allows easy exporting to Google Docs for saving work.

Bing AI requires use of the Microsoft Edge browser and lacks mobile apps, making the onboarding more complicated than Bard. However, Bing AI provides useful features like changeable conversation styles, follow-up question suggestions, and built-in Bing web search.

ChatGPT also requires creating an account, and has usage limitations on the free version. The paid ChatGPT 4 allows additional capabilities through plugins, but only one plugin can be activated at a time. Of the three assistants tested, Bard has the best combination of ease-of-use and intuitive features thanks to Google account integration.

Helpfulness and Completeness of AI Assistant Responses

When provided the same prompt comparing the features of Bard, Bing AI and ChatGPT, the responses showed significant differences in helpfulness and completeness:

Bard provided the most useful response, including an auto-generated comparison table detailing key metrics like model size, capabilities, availability and more. Bard also allows viewing multiple draft responses to pick the optimal one.

Bing AI compiled information from web searches into a response, citing all sources. However, Bing was unable to generate a comparison table like Bard when asked.

ChatGPT's free 3.5 model had limited helpfulness due to the 2021 knowledge cutoff. ChatGPT 4 provided a better response but still struggled with web access and table generation compared to Bard and Bing. Of the three assistants, Bard gave the most helpful and complete responses for these test prompts.

Accuracy of AI Assistant Information

Providing accurate information is crucial for AI assistants. We tested accuracy in two ways - solving a complex math problem, and providing up-to-date data about a real-world topic.

For the math test, all three assistants returned the correct final answer. However, only Bard and ChatGPT showed the step-by-step work. For real-time data, Bard and Bing AI both provided accurately updated box office data on the Super Mario Bros. movie with cited sources. The free ChatGPT model lacked current information, but the paid version could access the web for recent data.

Overall, Bard and Bing AI were equivalently accurate across tests. ChatGPT's accuracy depended significantly on using the paid version with web access enabled versus the limited free model.

Creativity of AI Assistants

To evaluate creative abilities, we prompted each assistant to generate an artistic prompt for the AI image generation platform Midjourney. ChatGPT provided the most detailed and imaginative prompt resulting in visually impressive images with a cinematic style.

Bing AI and Bard's prompts produced decent results, but were more basic. Bing AI does allow users to select a more creative conversation style for enhanced creative responses. For this test, ChatGPT demonstrated superior creativity compared to Bard and Bing AI.

Speed of Response Generation

The final evaluation criteria was speed at generating responses and completing tasks. We asked the AI assistants to write code for a simple guessing number game.

Bard produced functional game code the fastest, in around 3 seconds. However, the accompanying instructions were slightly confusing.

ChatGPT 3.5 also quickly generated game code and provided clear step-by-step instructions for running the program. ChatGPT 4 and Bing AI were significantly slower, taking over 30 seconds to output code likely due to the larger model powering both.

So for this coding test, Bard and ChatGPT 3.5 were fastest, with Bard having a slight edge in pure speed but ChatGPT provided clearer follow-up guidance.

Conclusion and Final Scores

To summarize, Google's Bard achieved top scores in ease-of-use, helpfulness, accuracy (tied with Bing), speed and overall versatility. While narrow gaps separated the AI assistants in some categories, Bard emerged as the leader in our suite of comparison testing.

ChatGPT beat out the competition in creativity, while also performing well in areas like accuracy. The main weakness we found was the limited functionality without the paid 4 version. Bing matched Bard in accuracy and data updates, but fell short in user experience and rounded performance.

Considering pace of advancement in AI, we will reevaluate these models periodically as new updates are rolled out. But in this head-to-head test, Google's Bard showcases impressive capabilities as a leader in the next generation of AI assistants.

FAQ

Q: Which AI assistant is the easiest to use?
A: Google Bard is the easiest to use and set up thanks to integration with existing Google accounts.

Q: Which AI is the most helpful and complete?
A: Google Bard provided the most helpful, complete answers in testing.

Q: Which AI assistant is the most accurate?
A: Google Bard and Microsoft Bing were the most accurate in tests.

Q: Which AI is the most creative?
A: ChatGPT demonstrated greater creativity in generating AI art prompts.

Q: Which AI assistant is the fastest?
A: Google Bard was by far the fastest AI assistant in speed tests.

Q: What were the final scores for each AI assistant?
A: In final scoring, Google Bard came out on top, followed by Microsoft Bing. The free version of ChatGPT scored lowest.

Q: How can I stay updated on future AI assistant comparisons?
A: The author will update this blog every few months with new comparison tests as the AI assistants evolve.

Q: Where can I learn more about AI?
A: The author has an AI education platform coming soon. Sign up via the link in the article description to stay informed.

Q: What types of tests were conducted?
A: The AI assistants were tested on criteria like ease of use, accuracy, creativity and speed.

Q: Which AI assistant should I use?
A: For most users, Google Bard currently provides the best overall combination of features, accuracy and speed.