ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini Or Another? The AI Tool Entrepreneurs Prefer
The battle continues, but who will win? ChatGPT had first mover advantage, but the other LLMs are pulling out all the stops with new features, bigger context windows, and enhanced capabilities that win loyal fans. But what is the best large language model for ambitious entrepreneurs?
I asked AI experts, professional content creators and business leaders, who each shared their preferred tool and why it appealed. The answers may surprise you.
The AI Tools Used By Ambitious Entrepreneurs
ChatGPT
It’s impossible to talk about LLMs without mentioning ChatGPT, which many people see as synonymous with AI itself. With around 180 million users, and 100 million of those using it every week, according to Sam Altman, ChatGPT is the first choice for many professionals out there.
Bhavik Sarkhedi, CMO at Content Whale, has a strong opinion. “OpenAI’s GPT-4 is the best,” he said. “I have used everything out there in the market but this surpassed every other.” Sarkhedi explained that, “The SEO blog content creation process is smooth, fast, smart and obedient. Since digital marketing and content marketing are mostly about producing new content, it is the most reliable today.”
“My personal favorite, as well as for my clients, is OpenAI’s ChatGPT due to it being good all around rather than in very specific areas,” explained Edward Morris, CEO and lead prompt engineer of prompt engineering and AI consultancy Enigmatica.
For Phillip Gervasi, director of technical evangelism at Kentik, GPT-4 is a clear winner “because of the size of its training dataset, making it more flexible and useful overall,” as well as “its solid performance, and how OpenAI makes documentation easily accessible for integrating your own RAG pipeline with the LLM”
Claude
Anthropic’s Claude is another serious LLM. Launched in March 2023 with a second version released in July, Claude does not disclose user numbers but its website reportedly had 25.9 million visits during November 2023. Its context window is often mentioned in comparisons, because while Claude 3 can process up to 200k tokens (~150,000 words), GPT-4 can only handle 32k tokens (~22,400 words).
“Claude all the way!” said Michael Greenberg, CEO of 3rdbrain.co. “We find it has fewer ‘hard bumpers’ built in compared to GPT-4 and gives better reasoned responses.” Founder of Lowcode.agency Jesus Vargas calls Claude Opus “a work of art,” adding, “It just reads so well, and doesn’t use the weird clickbaity types of words that OpenAI is known for.”
Terry Zelen, president and founder of Zelen Communications, has made the switch from GPT-4 to Claude for their team, explaining. “Claude’s responses are more conversational and offer deeper content than ChatGPT. Security and safeguards remain a priority with Claude’s LLM, aligning with our needs.”
ChatGPT fan Edward Morris said “Claude certainly excels at creative writing but it certainly doesn’t feel like a better all rounder compared to GPT4 despite benchmarking tests.” Sander Schulhoff, CEO of Learn Prompting also likes both Claude and ChatGPT, voting “Always GPT-4 for general efficacy, but recently Claude for coding because it produces fewer errors.”
This opinion is shared by senior AI researcher and lecturer at Swinburne University, Jeremy Nguyen, who votes “GPT-4 for reasoning, but definitely Claude Opus for writing.” Nguyen’s process is simple, “figure out an outline with GPT-4, but write it up with Claude to assist.” To put it into perspective, “GPT-4 feels like a long-winded bureaucrat, whereas Claude’s tone seems much more natural.”
Gemini
Launched in February 2024 with a new name, Google Gemini reportedly has 330.9 million users and Google claims it to be one of the most capable models they have ever built. Gemini is said to be the first model to outperform human experts on MMLU (massive multitask language understanding) with a score of 90%. But do entrepreneurs prefer it to ChatGPT and Claude?
Adam Tas, tech reviewer at FamilyPopTV, starts the voting for Gemini. “As a product reviewer, I deal with tons of data on tech gadgets. Condensing days of testing into tight scripts of 3-8 minutes each is brutal,” he explained. “Gemini analyzes my data, helps with scripts and frees me up for creative tasks,” which he calls a “Game changer for my workflow.”
Amanda Walls, director of Cedarwood Digital is also a fan. “Google Gemini works well for our clients and we use it frequently to drive efficiency throughout the business,” she said. “Using it for research and ideation can help to save time and create new thought paths and direction.”
Edward Morris has an opinion on Gemini too, which he said is restrictive, even though the cost is a positive factor for businesses he has worked with. “But due to Google’s overboard safeguarding policies, it makes it very difficult to use the API for apps that are designed for sensitive matters such as legal, medical, and even coaching,” he added.
Another Solution
“Lately it’s Perplexity,” explained Alex Northstar, AI automation consultant at NorthstarB LLC. “People think it’s only for research. They are wrong, I made Perplexity my Linkedin and Twitter ghostwriter.” Northstar calls it, “Fast, up-to-date info, versatile,” and shared an example of turning a news item into a Twitter thread using the AI tool.
Head of design group at Nexer Digital, Chris Bush, chooses Latimer.ai, which he describes as “An LLM that has been developed to use content that cover lesser represented cultures, and more diverse sources that many AI services currently lack.” He’s also a fan of Perplexity, which he said “does an amazing job of citing its sources when it generates content. It’s such a great way of building trust in the service and removing the risk of AI hallucinations.”
Founder of Magai Dustin W. Stout uses a combination. “It really depends on the task I need to accomplish. Each model has strengths and weaknesses.” For coming up with new ideas or creative takes, it’s GPT-4. “For writing structured articles for SEO, it’s Gemini Pro. For writing (or rewriting) with high emotional intelligence and nuance, it’s Claude 3 Opus.” Stout believes, “The real unlock is being able to use them all in tandem to build upon one another.”
James Bedford, educator at University of New South Wales, Sydney, also alternates between LLMs for different purposes and styles. “Claude seems much better at creating more nuanced and refined text, whereas ChatGPT is great for general purposes and has the ability to create custom GPTs, images and perform (albeit limited) data analysis.”
None Of Them
“As a copywriter, I haven’t been super impressed with any LLM’s abilities (yet),” explained Lianna Patch, founder of Punchline Conversion Copywriting. ChatGPT and custom GPTs can be useful for outlines, social media posts, and other content that lives further up the funnel from the sale, but I find they tend to get incredibly cliché when it comes to headlines, CTAs, and other copy that needs to feel more original. Also… their jokes are usually pretty bad, at least for now!”
Which LLM Will You Use Most Often? Join The debate.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, another solution or none of them at all? Choose your weapon and it will see you through ideation, research, content creation and analytics. In this debate, there was no clear winner. Business leaders and content creators largely agreed on the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and some use different ones for specific purposes.
Entrepreneurs creating their AI tool stacks should experiment with multiple tools before locking the processes in and getting to work. Listen to the opinions of those who have tested the limits of each LLM so you don’t waste valuable time.