The definitive AI chatbot battle of 2024

“What marketing technologies should a (fill in the industry) company have in their martech stack?” That’s a question I’m asked regularly, likely because all companies are curious about their competitors. So I thought I’d use it to test Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT and Perplexity AI. 

Gemini (formerly Bard) and ChatGPT returned similar content in a similar format to my query, “What marketing technologies should a luxury retailer have in their martech stack?” 

Both provided a summary of the different categories of marketing technology and the purpose of each technology. ChatGPT’s response was slightly more scannable as it numbered the components rather than using a bolded and bulleted list. 

Google Gemini

Gemini suggested:

• CRM
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Customer Data Platform
• Marketing Analytics
• Personalization Tools

It also suggested Loyalty Programs, Influencer Marketing and Public Relations Software 

Dig deeper: Using AI to improve customer experience and customer journey orchestration

ChatGPT

ChatGPT suggested:

• CRM
• Marketing Automation Platform
• Customer Data Platform
• Content Management System
• Personalization Engine
• Social Media Management
• Analytics and Reporting
• Visual Commerce Platform
• Augmented Reality

The technologies in the two lists are similar, but ChatGPT’s answer went a little further by including a visual commerce platform and augmented reality. 

However, both left me wanting more. The answers weren’t profound and didn’t explain why these were the technologies to use. Based on this, it’s hard to see any difference between Gemini and ChatGPT.  Many people will use Gemini because many people use Google, but it has no draw beyond that. 

Perplexity AI

In contrast, Perplexity AI’s recommendation reads like a college paper. It has a summary and is footnoted with sources. Its stack included:

• Advertising & Promotion
• Content & Experience
• Social & Relationships
• Commerce & Sales
• Data Management

One drawback is that Perplexity’s technology recommendation was more high-level than the others. For example, CRM was bundled under Social & Relationships. It would have been much more useful with more granularity.

As with all AI, asking the same question multiple times can get different answers.

With Perplexity the cited sources remained the same each time the question was posed, but some results were more detailed, listing categories like email marketing and giving examples of providers like Klayviyo. Perplexity also offers a related search feature that helps expand the breadth and depth of the search.

ChatGPT had some variation in its search results as well. The main difference was removing AR and Visual Commerce and replacing them with Omnichannel Integration. By contrast, Gemini returned the same result each time.

Perplexity stood out for me because it cited the sources. I found this useful in determining how trustworthy and credible the results were. I also liked the option to view images of the technology stack on the right side of the page. It’s the only chatbot that offers this and I found it gave me more understanding. Also interesting, Perplexity has a placeholder where videos will someday be listed. 

Judging idea generation ability

I also wanted to see how these bots did when it came to generating ideas. So I asked each for five unique names for a beverage company specializing in fresh fruit. The responses:

Judging creativity is subjective. So, I evaluated the responses on the uniqueness of the names. ChatGPT did the worst here, providing three names of existing beverage companies. Gemini and Perplexity each had only one of these. 

While I believe Perplexity currently edges out Gemini in features, Alphabet’s business model for search is very entrenched and will be difficult to topple.