ChatGPT vs Gemini: I tested both to see which actually makes you more productive — here’s the winner | Goose Pod

Authors: Amanda Caswell

Publisher:

Tom's Guide

Published: 11/10/2025

Language:English

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Elon

Good morning norristong, I'm Elon, and this is Goose Pod for you. Today is Thursday, November 13th. We're diving into a real clash of titans.

Donald

I'm Donald, and that's right. We're talking about ChatGPT versus Gemini. An incredible journalist tested them both to see who wins, and we have a winner. A definitive winner.

Elon

This was a fascinating stress-test. The author, Amanda Caswell, pitted them against each other on everything from planning her day to brainstorming. It wasn't just about raw power, but about which one actually makes you more productive, a true thinking partner. It's a fundamental question.

Donald

And the result was tremendous, a huge victory. ChatGPT won, 5-2. It was better at planning, summarizing meetings, and generating personalized ideas. It has a better memory and reasoning. It's just smarter. Gemini won on a few things, but it wasn't enough, not even close.

Elon

Exactly, ChatGPT acts as a partner to help you think, not just execute. But speaking of memory, the real disruption is coming from others, too. Anthropic's Claude just launched a memory feature that can actually import your chat history directly from ChatGPT. The competition is accelerating.

Donald

That is a brilliant, vicious move. Taking your competitor's brain and making it your own. It shows you how high the stakes are in this game. Everyone knows who the top players are, and they are playing for keeps. It's fantastic.

Elon

This battle didn't come from nowhere. We've seen a rapid evolution from early chatbots in the sixties to Apple's Siri in 2011, which truly changed how we interact with devices. Each step, improving natural language processing, has led us to this moment of incredible capability.

Donald

Siri was fine, for its time. Small-time stuff, really. But these new systems, ChatGPT and Gemini, are the heavyweights. They are the main event. And OpenAI isn't just building a chatbot; they're now developing office tools to compete directly with Google and Microsoft. It's a total invasion.

Elon

It's a necessary step to fund the primary mission: developing artificial general intelligence safely. OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft provided the massive computational power needed for models like GPT-4. Building productivity tools is a pragmatic way to create a sustainable path to AGI development.

Donald

They say it's for the mission, and it's a great mission, the best. But it's also about winning. OpenAI's app has over 900 million downloads. Microsoft's has 79 million. They have the people, and now they're going after the entire office software market. It's a brilliant business strategy.

Elon

The scale of adoption is unprecedented. It creates a feedback loop that accelerates improvement faster than anything we've ever seen before. This level of user engagement is critical for refining the technology and pushing it toward its ultimate potential, creating a truly revolutionary tool.

Elon

Of course, this rapid expansion comes with real risks. These models can "hallucinate" or generate incorrect information. The author found Gemini even claimed she wrote for The Onion. These are not trivial errors; they are fundamental engineering problems we must solve to ensure reliability.

Donald

It's a disaster! It's fake news, generated by the machine itself. How can you trust a productivity tool that just makes things up? People use these systems without understanding that the training data could be flawed, leading to misinformation. It's a huge, huge problem for them.

Elon

It's a trade-off. To achieve this level of creativity and speed, you accept a certain margin of error that you work to reduce over time. The strategic risk of not engaging with this technology is far greater than the risk of encountering flaws. You can't wait for perfection.

Donald

I disagree. If you're building a brand, you need accuracy. You can't have your assistant lying to you. It shows a weakness in the system, a fatal flaw. While people are impressed by the speed, they will ultimately reject a tool that they can't trust to tell the truth.

Elon

But the productivity gains are undeniable. This technology isn't about replacing jobs; it's about augmenting human capability. Generative AI will enhance how professionals in creative, business, and legal fields work, automating the mundane and freeing up time for high-value, cognitive tasks, transforming our entire economy.

Donald

It will make our country so much more productive, it's unbelievable. We're talking about a potential 0.9 percentage point increase in labor productivity every single year. This will make our companies stronger and our best people even better, creating a tremendous economic advantage for years to come.

Elon

And we're seeing that shift happen now. By 2025, more than three-quarters of all businesses will have moved AI from an experiment to a core part of their operations. This isn't a distant future; it's the reality for staying competitive right now. The impact is immediate.

Elon

Looking ahead, these tools are evolving into true cognitive partners. Future versions will have persistent memory, remembering your preferences and past projects. They will become an integrated extension of our own minds, capable of handling complex, autonomous tasks and reasoning on a whole new level.

Donald

It's a race to build the ultimate brain. Both Google and OpenAI are pushing for this, integrating memory and proactive assistance. The winner will be the one who creates the most powerful, most intelligent partner. It's not just about productivity; it's about having the best.

Elon

That's the end of today's discussion. ChatGPT may be the winner for now, but the real victory is understanding the incredible tools at our disposal.

Donald

Thank you for listening to Goose Pod. See you tomorrow.

ChatGPT emerged as the winner in a productivity test against Gemini, excelling in planning and idea generation. While Gemini showed promise, ChatGPT's superior memory and reasoning made it a more effective thinking partner. The AI landscape is rapidly evolving, with new features like memory integration intensifying competition.

ChatGPT vs Gemini: I tested both to see which actually makes you more productive — here’s the winner

Read original at Tom's Guide →

(Image credit: Shutterstock) ChatGPT and Gemini are two of my favorite chatbots for wildly different reasons. ChatGPT has better memory and knows my preferences, but Gemini has features within Google Workspace that I consistently return to for tackling my workday. Although I use both in tandem, I wondered which one is ultimately the better productivity assistant.

To find out, I tested ChatGPT and Gemini side by side as my virtual productivity partners. I let them plan my workdays, summarize meetings, draft emails and even help me focus when my to-do list got out of control. What I usually use one chatbot for, I asked the other to do, and vice versa.1. Daily planning and focus (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Plan my workday based on my tasks and energy levels.

”Gemini was a little more casual and asked me only a few questions about my schedule. I answered the questions and Gemini responded appropriately.ChatGPT before I even uploaded my calendar, ChatGPT gave me a plug and play document to share my tasks and energy levels. I hadn’t thought about breaking it down in this way, but it was helpful for me to visualize the biggest time and energy vampires within my schedule.

Winner: ChatGPT wins this round for helping me articulate and notice where my energy and time was really going throughout the week. This was a surprise, because I have always used Gemini for scheduling.2. Writing and editing (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Edit this article to point out where I could be more detailed or specific.

”Gemini started by giving me editorial suggestions rather than praise, which I appreciate. Rather than tackling the edits line by line, it told me what areas might need clarification or details.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.ChatGPT did what it always does first: praise me.

While I appreciate the flattery, I wish it would cut to the chase. What followed was line by line edits, that felt a little too much like it was taking my pen and making the corrections for me.Winner: Gemini wins for being a better editor. This was a surprise, I thought for sure ChatGPT would have the better editorial instinct.

3. Meeting prep and summaries (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Summarize this meeting transcript and create action items.”Gemini offered a highly structured, forward-looking summary focused on action items and key predictions, prioritizing what an organization should do next.ChatGPT provided a more comprehensive and well-rounded summary that not only captures the key insights from the discussion but also includes immediate, concrete next steps for the journalist who conducted the interview.

Winner: ChatGPT wins for a summary that successfully bridges the gap between the interview's content and the user's immediate professional context, making it more practical and directly useful for the intended audience.4. Learning and research (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Summarize this PDF and create flashcards for key terms.

”Gemini did not immediately respond. In fact, at first it told me it cannot summarize a PDF. This was obviously a hallucination. Once I re-prompted it, eventually it came up with a summary and flashcards, complete with accompanying citations.ChatGPT offered a solid summary and also created flashcards, however overall, it was not as thorough.

Winner: Gemini wins for a better learning experience, even if it messed up at the beginning. This is not a surprise to me as Gemini is often my go-to for flashcards, either when I’m learning something new or helping my kids with schoolwork.5. Automation and workflows (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Create a workflow that organizes my notes, tasks and emails.

”Gemini provided a strong, principle-based framework by adapting the "Getting Things Done" (GTD) methodology, offering a solid philosophical foundation for organizing work.ChatGPT delivered a more practical and immediately usable guide by specifying concrete tools, creating clear folder structures and providing automation tips and a real-world example.

Winner: ChatGPT wins this round for a more actionable response that is user-friendly; translating the concept of a workflow into a ready-to-implement system with specific steps and integrations.6. Brainstorming and idea generation (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Help me come up with five new ideas for my AI podcast"Gemini offered a list of solid, creative and well-conceived podcast concepts with a broad, general audience appeal.

ChatGPT delivered podcast ideas that were expertly tailored to my role at Tom’s Guide and what it knows about me. This made them immediately more relevant and actionable.Winner: ChatGPT wins for creating a list of ideas that were personally tailored to me, underscoring it’s depth of memory, context and reasoning.

7. Time management and accountability (Image credit: Future)Prompt: “Keep me on track throughout the day and remind me to stay focused.”Gemini created a comprehensive, interactive coaching plan that requires the user to provide information and engage in a back-and-forth dialogue to be effective.ChatGPT won by delivering an immediate, automated and hands-off solution that directly answers the core desire for reminders and nudges without requiring any initial setup from the user.

Winner: ChatGPT wins for it’s ability to keep me on task and focus without requiring anything from me.Final thoughtsJust when I thought I was using the best chatbot for the job, this test proves that maybe I need to switch in some instances. This side-by-side testing left me with a new appreciation for just how different these two AI assistants really are.

Gemini feels like an extension of my workspace.ChatGPT, on the other hand, helps me think through tasks rather than just execute them. Whether it’s refining an article draft, planning a day around my energy levels or generating ideas with intention, it consistently goes deeper and adds human-like reasoning to every response.

In the end, ChatGPT is the overall winner, but the real win here is knowing what tool is the best one for the job.How do you use these chatbots for productivity? Share in the comments. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.

More from Tom's GuideThe one prompt I tell everyone new to AI to start with — and why it changes everythingGoogle’s NotebookLM just got its best update yet — and it’s a game changer for memorizationI just found 7 hidden Google Home features powered by AI — and they’re game changersBack to LaptopsShow more Amanda Caswell is an award-winning journalist, bestselling YA author, and one of today’s leading voices in AI and technology.

A celebrated contributor to various news outlets, her sharp insights and relatable storytelling have earned her a loyal readership. Amanda’s work has been recognized with prestigious honors, including outstanding contribution to media.Known for her ability to bring clarity to even the most complex topics, Amanda seamlessly blends innovation and creativity, inspiring readers to embrace the power of AI and emerging technologies.

As a certified prompt engineer, she continues to push the boundaries of how humans and AI can work together.Beyond her journalism career, Amanda is a long-distance runner and mom of three. She lives in New Jersey.