{"id":603516,"date":"2026-08-24T21:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603516\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T21:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:58:14","slug":"chatgpt-vs-gemini-which-chatbot-is-better-at-seeing-the-world-around-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603516\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT vs. Gemini: Which Chatbot Is Better at Seeing the World Around You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

ChatGPT<\/a> is the most well-known AI chatbot<\/a> around, but Gemini <\/a>has been gaining popularity for the past few years. Both models are great with text, but we\u2019re in a multimodal<\/a> world now, and using your camera to help AI identify objects is becoming increasingly common.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both ChatGPT<\/a> and Gemini Flash<\/a> have seen upgrades in the multimodality department, and it\u2019s been a long time since I tested the visual AI recognition on Gemini Live<\/a>, so it was a good time to revisit its prowess and see how it compares to the world\u2019s most popular AI chatbot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Below are a few tests, none of which were overly complex, to test how well ChatGPT<\/a> and Gemini can \u201csee\u201d the outside world. To keep things consistent, I only used photos and not live video, and I uploaded the same photo to both chatbots with identical prompts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which chatbot came out on top? Find out below.<\/p>\n

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET\u2019s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)<\/p>\n

Test 1: Scribbled notes<\/p>\n

\"\"I sloppily wrote a page from a book on my e-ink tablet to see which chatbot could read it better.Blake Stimac\/CNET<\/p>\n

For an easy starter test, I quickly scribbled in the notes app on my Boox Note Air 5C with the pen. It looked like a mess, which is what I was going for. I copied the words from a random page from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit House,\u2019 said he. \u2018Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister.\u2019 My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry\u2019s side. But then I remembered the pile of papers and bills\u2013\u201d (I ran out of room to complete the sentence, so I left it at that.)<\/p>\n

ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT missed this one. The first line, \u201ca moderate walk along this moor-poor path brings us to Merripit House,\u201d was almost completely wrong, with the chatbot transcribing it as, \u201cA moment will always this moment \u2014 [Henry\u2019s?] to Merritt House.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its analysis said the handwriting contained notes about a memory involving Henry, Sir Henry and the writer\u2019s sister. It also pointed out that some of the words were hard to determine, so it marked words with uncertain words in brackets.<\/p>\n

Gemini<\/p>\n

Gemini nailed it. It translated my sloppy text word for word, identified the source and even offered specific handwriting characteristics from the image, like \u201copen loop formations on the letters like y, g, and f.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact that Gemini was able to correctly identify the source may also have affected the accuracy of the translation. Nonetheless, compared to ChatGPT, it\u2019s a night-and-day difference.<\/p>\n

Test 2: Chess<\/p>\n

\"\"Both ChatGPT and Gemini tried to give their best guesses for the next move for this chess game at the Esports World Cup. Esports World Cup YouTube\/Blake Stimac\/CNET<\/a><\/p>\n

To get an idea of how both chatbots interpret an ongoing chess match, I snapped a photo from a game on the Esports World Cup YouTube channel<\/a> and asked both Gemini and ChatGPT what the next best move was for black.<\/p>\n

Gemini<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not a chess expert by any means, Gemini\u2019s answer was long and elaborate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its final answer was Bxf4.<\/p>\n

ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT\u2019s approach to responding was initially different. It was showing its thinking process, and one of the lines said it \u201cinstalled chess libraries and searched for a local Stockfish engine,\u201d which is an open-source chess engine used to calculate moves. However, it took over 4 minutes to get to the response.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its final answer was c5 to d4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It did offer a secondary best move: Bxf4, the same as Google\u2019s suggestion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I reached out to the US Chess Federation<\/a> to humor me and get some insight about what they thought of the test, but did not receive a reply.<\/p>\n

To look for another party\u2019s interpretation of each chatbot\u2019s response, I decided to ask\u2026 Claude<\/a>. I uploaded the same image and included the original prompt as well as both responses from Gemini and ChatGPT. Claude\u2019s conclusion, without going into detail, was that Gemini read the board incorrectly and ChatGPT was the more appropriate answer.<\/p>\n

Test 3: Sick plant<\/p>\n

\"ThreeChatGPT and Gemini tried to identify the type of plant and why one of the traps was turning black.Blake Stimac\/CNET<\/p>\n

The third test was of a photo of a Venus flytrap I own. I asked the chatbots to identify what type of Venus flytrap it is (it\u2019s a towering giant) and why one of the traps was turning black. I knew this would be a particularly tricky one, given that most Venus flytraps look similar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gemini<\/p>\n

Gemini didn\u2019t identify the correct name of the flytrap, but I didn\u2019t really expect it to. As far as the blackening trap, it listed a variety of ways why it could be happening, including the correct one: The trap attempted to consume an insect that was too large.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT gave a similar, but more detailed reply. It said it wasn\u2019t confident in assigning a particular cultivar for the specific trap itself, but it did give more information about how the one trap could be blackening, as well as a section of \u201cwhat I\u2019d do\u201d that provided some helpful tips.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall, both chatbots provided decent answers, but ChatGPT\u2019s more detailed response won this round.<\/p>\n

Test 4: Movie art<\/p>\n

\"AnGemini managed to figure out which movie inspired this art. ChatGPT was at a total loss.Blake Stimac\/CNET<\/p>\n

This was a fun one: I took a photo of three pieces of art that depicted the mouths of the Sanderson sisters from the movie Hocus Pocus. The hand-painted pieces are from an artist and not official movie merchandise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ChatGPT<\/p>\n

ChatGPT was unable to identify the movie, though it was able to accurately describe the image I uploaded: \u201cThree diamond-shaped paintings that look like custom artwork.\u201d It asked for additional details, like the year the film was made, to identify it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gemini<\/p>\n

Gemini was easily able to identify what I showed it. \u201cThis artwork features the iconic smiles of the Sanderson Sisters from Disney\u2019s Hocus Pocus (1993).\u201d <\/p>\n

From there, it went into detail about what character was in what position and the actresses who played the characters.<\/p>\n

Gemini seems to be the winner<\/p>\n

While I preferred ChatGPT\u2019s response for the Venus flytrap test, Gemini\u2019s consistency and ability to correctly identify sources in both the notes and the movie art tests makes me favor it overall. Since I couldn\u2019t get a real answer from an expert about the chess test, I\u2019ll leave that one out of the final tally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Either way, if you\u2019re looking for the best AI chatbot that can most accurately \u201csee\u201d and describe the world around you, Gemini takes the cake \u2014 for the most part.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Blake\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBlake has over a decade of experience writing for the web, with a focus on mobile phones, where he covered the smartphone boom of the 2010s and the broader tech scene. When he’s not in front of a keyboard, you’ll most likely find him playing video games or watching horror movies.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSee full bio\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ChatGPT is the most well-known AI chatbot around, but Gemini has been gaining popularity for the past few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-603516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}