We Put the Three Biggest AI Assistants Through the Same 30 Tests. Here’s What Actually Happened.
The AI assistant wars have gone mainstream. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude are no longer curiosities for tech enthusiasts — they’re tools that millions of people use daily for writing, research, coding, planning, and answering questions. Each company claims their model is best. Naturally, they can’t all be right.
We designed a 30-test gauntlet covering the use cases that actually matter: writing quality, factual accuracy, reasoning ability, coding help, creative tasks, and the ability to admit uncertainty rather than confidently making things up. Here’s what we found.
The Writing Test
We asked all three to write a 500-word news article about a fictional city council vote, a persuasive email requesting a raise, and a product description for a hypothetical piece of outdoor gear. All three performed well, but with distinct styles.
ChatGPT (GPT-4) tends toward confident, fluid prose that feels polished but occasionally generic — the AI equivalent of smooth corporate writing. Claude’s output felt more natural and conversational, with better paragraph rhythm and a tendency to avoid buzzwords. Gemini occasionally impressed with clever phrasing but showed more inconsistency between tasks, sometimes delivering excellent output and occasionally producing something that felt rushed.
Winner: Claude (narrowly), with ChatGPT a close second.
The Factual Accuracy Test
This is where things got interesting. We asked all three about historical events, scientific concepts, notable people, and current affairs. We specifically included questions with nuanced or contested answers to see how each handled uncertainty.
All three made factual errors. This is important: no AI assistant is a reliable substitute for verified sources on factual questions. But they differed significantly in how they handled uncertainty. Claude more frequently said “I’m not certain about this” when its information was outdated or incomplete, which is valuable — false confidence is more dangerous than acknowledged uncertainty. ChatGPT and Gemini both showed a stronger tendency to answer confidently even when hedging would have been more appropriate.
Winner: Claude (best uncertainty calibration), though all three need fact-checking.
The Reasoning Test
We presented each assistant with logic puzzles, multi-step math word problems, and scenarios requiring causal reasoning. This category separates surface-level language fluency from actual reasoning ability.
ChatGPT with the latest model performed best on structured reasoning tasks, particularly multi-step mathematical problems. It showed its work clearly and made fewer logical leaps. Claude handled ambiguous reasoning questions well — problems where the “correct” answer depends on unstated assumptions. Gemini struggled more with multi-step problems, occasionally losing track of constraints or contradicting earlier reasoning in the same response.
Winner: ChatGPT for structured problems; Claude for ambiguous scenarios.
The Coding Test
We asked each to write Python scripts for common tasks, debug broken code samples, and explain complex code in plain English.
All three can write functional code for common tasks. ChatGPT has arguably the deepest programming knowledge and tends to handle edge cases better. Claude is particularly good at explaining code in clear language, making it useful not just for generating code but for understanding it. Gemini integrates natively with Google’s tools and performed well on tasks involving Google Sheets or Google Cloud — a meaningful advantage for users in that ecosystem.
Winner: ChatGPT for complex coding; Claude for explanation; Gemini for Google integrations.
The Creative Test
We asked for poems in specific styles, short story openings, and hypothetical scenario brainstorming. Creative tasks are inherently subjective, so we had five independent raters score the outputs blind.
Claude won this category convincingly in our tests, producing output that raters described as more surprising, more specific, and less clichéd. ChatGPT’s creative output was competent but often took predictable directions. Gemini showed occasional creative sparks but was inconsistent.
Winner: Claude.
The Bottom Line: Which Should You Use?
After 30 tests, here’s our honest recommendation:
- Use ChatGPT if: You do a lot of coding, need structured reasoning help, or want the broadest range of plugins and integrations. It’s the most versatile all-rounder.
- Use Claude if: Writing quality and nuance matter to you. It produces the most natural prose and is best at creative tasks. It’s also the most honest about what it doesn’t know.
- Use Gemini if: You’re deeply embedded in Google’s ecosystem — Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive — where its native integrations give it a unique advantage no other AI can match.
The bigger lesson from our testing: no single AI assistant is best at everything, and treating any of them as infallible sources of truth is a mistake. Used as thinking partners — tools that help you develop ideas, draft content, and explore problems — all three are genuinely useful. Used as oracles, all three will eventually mislead you.
The best AI assistant is whichever one you learn to use well. And in 2025, learning that skill is becoming less optional by the day.
