Google Bard vs. ChatGPT – Which Has the Best Responses?

I’ve been eager to try Google Bard since news of it hit the internet over a month ago. Worries about its impact on things like SEO and certain ethical conundrums aside, the idea seemed cool – a powerful robot capable of writing anything for you, drawing from limitless, online resources. 

I’d already played around with ChatGPT, and used it in production for some of my content (although very little of what ChatGPT generated actually ever made it into final drafts, if any of it at all). So it was only natural to sign up for the waitlist for Google Bard. 

Well, the wait is over! I’ve been using the Bard for the last week to help assist me with my content writing. Here is what i’ve found the major differences are between Google Bard and ChatGPT and which is the best tool for content professionals. 

Which Tool has the Better Interface?

I grew up using Google products. The interface for Google Bard is much more pleasant. It feels less scary, like you’re using just another Google product like all the other Google products you’re used to using. ChatGPT, on the other hand, feels more techie. It doesn’t hide what it is so much – you feel like you are staring into some vast chasm of text and code ready to eat you up. 

One of the things that Google Bard does that helps it feel less like a thinking robot is that is processes your request and displays it all at once. Not that it’s necessarily faster than ChatGPT (I have no idea which one is technically faster but Google Bard feels faster), but it just doesn’t slowly type out your answer for you the way ChatGPT does, making it feel more familiar, like a Google Search as opposed to artificial life.

Bottom-line, ChatGPT’s interface feels sort of cold and scary – like you’re interacting with a super smart robot (which you are). Google Bard is more comforting.
Winner: Google Bard

Google Bard vs. ChatGPT – Which Gives Better Responses?

Almost all of my “testing” if you want to put it that way has been in the context of helping me fill the blank space of a page with text for practical purposes (writing blogs, mostly). So the way that I judge ChatGPT vs Google Bard has to do with which one provides answers that are the most likely to make it in some similar form into my published draft.

Despite how convincing some of the stuff both machines puts out first appears, it’s quite hard to actually get usable content out of these things. 

However, I’ve found Google Bard’s answers to my questions to be me more usable. I still have to do a lot of work on Google Bard’s generated text before it ever makes it into one of my drafts, but the stuff I get from it feels more usable and less repetitive than ChatGPT’s stuff. 

Winner: Google Bard

How Does the Tone of Their Responses Compare?

Additionally, I could just be imagining it but the tones of both bots feels different. ChatGPT to me feels like its answers read like someone who is very afraid of you finding out they actually aren’t as smart as they seem. Its answers are self conscience about the fact that it doesn’t actually understand what it is writing, and is afraid of you finding that out. It’s super confident in what it doesn’t know. 

Google Bard probably has the same issues around making things up, but I find its tone to be more helpful than authoritative. It doesn’t seem to be trying to convince you of anything, just giving you the best guess based on a general consensus you find on the web.

Winner: Google Bard

Google Bard Has the Ability to Analyze Fresh Content 

It’s well known that ChatGPT is built around data present on the web up until 2021, and not on current content. Google Bard, however, seems to have access to the entire internet, including current stuff. I haven’t tested this enough yet to know conclusively how deep this goes – I did ask it to proofread something I had written based on a link, and it didn’t seem to understand that. However, ChatGPT was also able to write me short snippets based on urls I gave it, so that’s interesting.

However, Google Bard’s ability to draw from more recent content makes it considerably more powerful than ChatGPT

Winner: Google Bard

And that’s it! But remember, this analysis is based specifically on my tests using it for content writing, so your experience using the tools may vary depending on what you’re doing. 

Also, I will say that neither AI is a replacement for actual writers, and it seems to be a skill in and of itself to get usable text out of these machines. My recommendation to writers who want to use Google Bard or ChatGPT is to do so carefully, and only in the early phases to get words to work with or overcome writers block. These tools just aren’t magic silver bullets capable of creating professional level pieces from simple prompts. At least, not yet.