ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which AI chatbot should you use?

I've been using ChatGPT ever since OpenAI launched it in 2022. It's helped me write meta descriptions for blog posts, create simple code snippets, and generate outlines. Heck, I've even used it to plan a trip to Portugal. 

But I've been keen to try out Microsoft's new Bing AI chatbot to see if it lives up to the hype. With Bing Chat, you're able to chat, compose content, generate images, and get summarized answers to complex questions—all in one interface. It's supposed to be a far more advanced version of ChatGPT, so I was excited to see how their features stack up. 

Here are the main differences I discovered while comparing ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat. 

• Bing Chat is part of search, while ChatGPT is an isolated interface

• Bing is integrated into a web browser, which allows for more tailored outputs

• ChatGPT has more powerful integrations and plugins

• Bing Chat can generate images, but ChatGPT lets you share your conversations

ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat at a glance

If you want free access to GPT-4 (OpenAI's most advanced and more powerful language model), Bing Chat is currently the way to go. You can access GPT-4 via ChatGPT Plus, which is a paid subscription, but Bing Chat gives you free access via Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Safari (access via Chrome and Safari is still being rolled out to all users as of this writing). Beyond that, here's the main difference:

• Bing Chat is built into Microsoft Edge, so it's a more integrated, tailored way of searching for answers. That makes it a powerful research assistant.

• ChatGPT—though a more isolated experience—can be accessed on any browser and has more powerful integrations and plugins. It's better suited as a personal assistant than a research assistant.

I'll walk through some of the core differences between ChatGPT and Bing Chat in depth in the coming sections, but here's a quick breakdown of how they compare.

Bing Chat is part of search, while ChatGPT is an isolated interface

Both ChatGPT and Bing Chat use OpenAI's language models, which means that, for the most part, they generate very similar results. 

The biggest difference between them is that Bing Chat is also powered by Microsoft's Prometheus, a model that integrates Bing Search with the AI tool.     

Marketed as a "co-pilot" for the web, Bing Chat distills the latest information from across the web and summarizes it when answering your prompts. It even cites its sources and generates a list of relevant links (as well as pulling in visuals). This is what it looks like within the Bing Chat web interface.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, doesn't pull in current results from the internet as it's only been trained on information up until 2021.

In addition to being more reliable because it cites its sources, Bing also offers recommendations on what to search for next. 

And, if you scroll down on the chat page, Microsoft will return you to its regular search page, with a link to the most recent question you asked the chat. 

As a whole, Bing AI feels a lot more like a search tool that'll summarize complex answers for you—giving you the sources if you want to dig deeper into any topic. All without having to search through multiple pages yourself. 

You can get summaries from ChatGPT as well, but it's a much more isolated experience—it definitely feels like a chatbot, not a search tool. 

Bing is integrated into a web browser, which allows for more tailored outputs based on what you're doing

If you're using the Microsoft Edge browser to access Bing, Bing Chat is integrated into a sidebar called Discover, and it includes additional features: Chat, Compose, and Insights.

Chat

You can chat with Bing Chat directly from the sidebar, without having to go to the Bing Chat webpage. The best part is that when you're on a website full of information, it answers questions from that page contextually. 

Reading a complex article and want the key takeaways? Done. Need to understand a complex concept in simpler terms? Done. 

This can be pretty helpful when you need an AI assistant while going through information-dense internet research.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, requires you to copy and paste the text you want it to summarize, which makes for a disjointed research experience. 

Insights

Bing has an Insights tab that'll give you even more information about the page you're on. It surfaces things like a Q&A, key points, page topics, and related articles. 

Scroll all the way down, and you can also get a quick overview of analytics about the website you're visiting (like domain name, hosting service, and even traffic rank). This is something that ChatGPT doesn't have, as it's primarily focused on text generation. 

Composition

With ChatGPT, you have to be extremely specific in your prompts; otherwise, the output will be pretty vague and most likely won't tick all your boxes. 

Bing's Composition feature steers you more toward getting the specific output you want, by giving you ready-made options. Inside the text box, you can write out your prompt, set the tone you're after, select the format (blog post, email, etc.), and set the length. It feels more like an AI writing generator in that way.

This is pretty handy if you're not sure how to create prompts that will get you what you're after, but you can just tell ChatGPT these same things in your prompt, and it'll do a decent job. 

And if you find yourself prompting ChatGPT with the same instructions every time you interact with it—e.g., "Write in a professional tone" or "Keep the response concise"—you can add custom instructions so that it automatically considers them without having to prompt it every time.

While not as convenient as choosing from Bing's ready-made formatting options, ChatGPT's custom instructions will save you a lot of time in the long run. 

ChatGPT has more powerful integrations and plugins, transforming it into a highly efficient assistant

While it's true that Bing Chat has started to roll out plugins to users, you can count them all on two hands (for now). ChatGPT, on the other hand, offers a wider range of plugins that let you combine AI with other apps to unlock more varied use cases.

For example, you can install the Zapier plugin to automate workflows directly inside the ChatGPT interface. Need the AI to write an email, then save it as a draft? It'll do it within a matter of seconds. 

The options are endless: add events to your Google Calendar, update your Slack status, or do anything else that involves your tech stack, straight from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT also integrates with Zapier outside of the plugin, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps and access ChatGPT from the apps you use most. Learn more about how to automate ChatGPT, or you can get started with one of these examples.

Other features: Bing AI can generate images using DALL·E; ChatGPT lets you share conversations with other people

One of the best—and most surprising—things about Bing is that it can generate images for you inside the chat function. That's without you having to go through another AI image generator, so you can literally do everything—search, create copy, get images—all in the same interface. 

It's worth mentioning that this feature is only available to Microsoft Edge users.

Powered by OpenAI's DALL·E, you can just ask it to create a pic, and it takes a matter of seconds to deliver. 

Imagine you're a travel writer. This could be a workflow you follow: You ask Bing about popular spots in New York using the chat feature. Then you ask the composition feature to create a blog post about New York. After that, you can ask Bing to create a blog hero image. That's not a super nuanced example, but you get the gist.

In that regard, ChatGPT can't really compare, as it's purely text-based. 

But while we're talking about strengths, ChatGPT has a feature that lets you share specific conversations with your friends or co-workers.

This is particularly handy if ChatGPT gives an excellent response you want others to see, or you want to collaborate on a prompt.

Say, for example, you gave ChatGPT a lot of context on a specific customer or your company to generate sales emails. If you wanted one of your employees to then tweak the copy or create more options (using the memory of your original conversation), you can just share the entire conversation with that person, saving you from copy-pasting or sending screenshots—and saving that person from having to train ChatGPT on what you've already trained it on.

Whoever you share the convo with can then carry on chatting to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will remember all the context you originally gave it. 

It's a great reference point for any future discussions you have at work, with the added benefit that you can rename any conversations you have in the side panel on the left-hand side, so you can easily track all of your stored conversations for work purposes.

Bing Chat vs. ChatGPT: Which should you use?

Both ChatGPT and Bing can be handy writing tools and informative chatbots—but the better one depends on your actual use case. 

If you want a powerful research tool that's integrated with a web browser (and which shines in terms of in-depth page insights, image generation, and citing reputable sources), Bing Chat is your best bet. 

If, however, you want to have an AI-powered personal assistant that can perform actions for you in different apps, there's no contest: ChatGPT wins because of its suite of plugins. 

The best way to know what works for you? Try them both out. 

Bonus: Build your own AI chatbot

If ChatGPT and Bing aren't doing the trick, and you want a chatbot that feels tailor-made to meet your needs, try Zapier's free AI chatbot builder. 

Zapier will combine your data with the power of OpenAI models to generate on-brand responses. You can even train your chatbot using your own knowledge sources, restrict it from using outside data sources, and even enter custom responses—all without writing a single line of code. Then, you share the link or embed the chatbot on your website.

Related reading:

• ChatGPT vs. Bard: What's the difference?

• How to use ChatGPT

• The best AI chatbots

• What is Llama 2 and why does it matter?

This article was originally published in May 2023 and has also had contributions from Jessica Lau. The most recent update was in August 2023.