Is ChatGPT Still the King? 6 Features Where Competitors Win
While ChatGPT has undeniably revolutionized the world of artificial intelligence and maintains a dominant position in the market, the AI landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace. We often focus on the latest groundbreaking features, but it’s equally important to critically assess where the industry leader might be falling short. This analysis isn’t about dethroning ChatGPT but about empowering you to choose the best tool for the job.
It’s no secret that ChatGPT is the titan of the AI world. It’s the go-to application for millions, a true behemoth in the digital space.
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With an astonishing 700 million weekly active users and a massive market share, its influence is undeniable. However, this dominance doesn’t mean it’s the undisputed champion in every single category. Other powerful models from competitors like Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini) are now excelling in specific areas, offering superior performance for certain tasks.
This video takes a different angle, showing you the features where you should actually consider leaving ChatGPT and looking towards other models. We’re looking at which features in ChatGPT are the ones where you should consider opening a second tab.
To understand where ChatGPT’s armor might have a few chinks, we first need to appreciate the sheer breadth of its capabilities.
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The platform is packed with an extensive list of features, from basic text chat and memory to advanced functions like agent mode, custom GPTs, and various app integrations. OpenAI is constantly adding new tools to its arsenal. However, being a jack-of-all-trades sometimes means not being the master of all. The competition is heating up, a fact even OpenAI seems to acknowledge.
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Recent reports indicate that OpenAI’s leadership has initiated a “code red” effort to prioritize and improve ChatGPT in response to growing pressure. Competitors are not just catching up; in some cases, they’re pulling ahead.
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New models, such as the open-source DeepSeek-V2 from China, are outperforming established players on various benchmarks. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 has set a new standard for development tasks and generating human-like text.
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Beyond abstract benchmarks, what are the concrete features where you can get better results elsewhere? After a thorough review, six specific areas stand out.
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This isn’t to say these ChatGPT features are bad, but rather that superior alternatives exist. If you need top-tier results in these domains, it’s worth exploring other options.
1. Presentations
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When it comes to generating presentations, the difference in quality is stark. A side-by-side comparison of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude using the same simple prompt reveals a clear hierarchy.
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Using the prompt below, all three major platforms were put to the test.
Create power point slides for a presentation about the benefits of learning new skills
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ChatGPT produces a functional but incredibly basic PowerPoint file. It arranges the requested text onto slides with minimal formatting, offering little in the way of visual appeal or design. It’s a barebones outline that requires significant manual work to become presentable.
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In contrast, Claude is in a league of its own. It not only generates the content but also creates a fully designed, visually appealing presentation with a consistent color palette, icons, and professional layouts. It even includes data visualizations. While not perfect, the output from Claude serves as an excellent starting point that is miles ahead of what ChatGPT offers. Gemini, with its integration into Google Slides, places a solid second, but Claude is the clear winner for presentation generation.
2. Spreadsheets
The story is much the same when it comes to creating spreadsheets. While ChatGPT can generate a downloadable Excel file, the result is often underwhelming and lacks the depth and functionality provided by its rivals.
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Given a prompt to create a template for a quarterly social media marketing report, ChatGPT produces a spreadsheet with tabs and headers, but no mock data, formulas, or formatting. It’s essentially an empty shell.
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Gemini performs significantly better, creating a well-structured report with mock data, formulas for growth calculation, and even color-coded status indicators. It’s a genuinely useful template that can be exported directly to Google Sheets.
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Once again, Claude Opus 4.5 takes the crown. It generates an exceptionally detailed, multi-tab Excel file complete with a KPI dashboard, separate tabs for different social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, etc.), content analysis sections, and goal planning. The level of detail and professional formatting is far superior to the competition.
3. Image Generation & Editing
When ChatGPT first integrated DALL-E 3, its image generation capabilities went viral. The ability to create and remix images inside a chat was a game-changer. However, the competition has since made significant strides, particularly Google.
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Google Gemini’s image model, Nano Banana Pro, has proven to be exceptionally powerful, especially for image editing and maintaining facial consistency. You can easily upload a photo of yourself and ask Gemini to transform it.
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The model does a remarkable job of retaining the user’s likeness while placing them in a completely new context. Its editing capabilities are equally impressive. When asked to add a mustache and a speech bubble, Gemini seamlessly modifies the existing image.
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ChatGPT’s attempts at the same task often result in a completely new image that barely resembles the original, or grainy edits that look unnatural. While other tools like Midjourney still lead the pack for pure aesthetic quality, for convenient and powerful in-chat image creation and editing, Gemini currently has the edge.
4. Record Mode
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The ChatGPT desktop app includes a Record Mode designed to capture, transcribe, and summarize meetings. In theory, this is a fantastic utility. In practice, however, it can be unreliable. During a live test, the feature failed to detect any dialogue, rendering it useless.
This unreliability is a major issue. For a feature like meeting transcription, you need to be able to depend on it. Bolted-on features that fail intermittently are less useful than dedicated, integrated solutions.
A better approach is to use tools that are built directly into your meeting software. For example, Gemini is integrated into Google Meet, where it can reliably take notes and provide summaries automatically without any extra steps.
5. Memory
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Memory is one of ChatGPT’s most powerful personalization features. It automatically picks up on details from your conversations—like your name, preferences, or project details—and saves them to inform future responses. While this can be helpful, it also presents a significant drawback.
The automatic nature of this feature means that over time, your “memory” can become cluttered with irrelevant or outdated information from one-off chats or experiments. This can “pollute” new, unrelated conversations, leading to confused or inaccurate responses. The key to mastering AI is managing your context effectively, and letting the AI manage it for you automatically is often a recipe for frustration.
A more effective method is to manage your context manually using Projects. You can create specific projects for different tasks (e.g., “AI Advantage Work Context”) and upload relevant Markdown files or documents. This gives you full control over the information ChatGPT uses in a given conversation. For those who prefer an automated approach, Claude’s memory system offers a more structured solution, categorizing memories and updating them periodically, which provides a cleaner and more organized experience.
In conclusion, while ChatGPT remains an incredibly versatile and powerful tool, it is no longer the best at everything. For creating professional presentations and detailed spreadsheets, Claude Opus 4.5 is the clear leader. For flexible image generation and editing, Google Gemini offers superior capabilities. And for crucial tasks like meeting transcription and precise context management, dedicated or better-integrated tools provide more reliability and control. By understanding these nuances, you can build a more powerful and efficient AI toolkit, using the right model for the right job.