The Battle of AI: ChatGPT vs Gemini

We all know that AI is becoming as integral to our lives as the internet. Regardless of how you use it, whether for work or just for fun, it is a decent tool for getting information and ideas quickly.

Whichever one you use, you can ask it for whatever you want without searching through dozens of web pages that are often filled with ads or data trackers.

That being said, there are still privacy concerns regarding AI, so while we will look at ChatGPT vs. Gemini in terms of features, we are more concerned about how these platforms handle your data, which will be the focus of this article.

Table of contents

• ChatGPT vs. Gemini: overview of both platforms
• ChatGPT vs. Gemini: features
• ChatGPT vs. Gemini: privacy and data handling
• ChatGPT vs. Gemini: which one is better?

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: overview of both platforms

Open AI released ChatGPT in November 2022. Gemini was released in December 2023 to compete with ChatGPT and Microsoft’s AI, Copilot. All these platforms offer assistance with writing, image generation, and other tasks.

The table below provides a general overview of ChatGPT vs. Gemini in terms of how they are built and what they offer and the pros and cons of each platform.

ChatGPT pros and cons

Gemini pros and cons

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: features

Here’s a quick overview of how both platforms handle image, research, data analysis and other tasks.

Creating images: for Gemini it’s free, but not for ChatGPT

Both Gemini and ChatGPT can create images based on your prompts. The difference is that while Gemini offers this for free, you are limited on a free plan with how many you can create with ChatGPT unless you pay for DALL-E 3 or wait for the limit to reset.

So, if image creation is part of your work for photography or graphic design purposes, to help you build logos or other designs, then free images may be an essential factor in the ChatGPT vs Gemini debate.

If, on the other hand, you’re like me and will use this feature sparingly to create funny pictures of cats and nothing else, then you can still create images on either platform and pick your preferred design.

Let’s compare how each handled the prompt: “Create an image of a cat dressed as Harry Potter.”

Gemini:

ChatGPT:

Although image creation is fun, what you can create is only limited by your imagination. However, as AI becomes more advanced, these fake images may become more challenging to detect what is real and what is not, bringing with it AI deepfakes that violate people’s personal privacy and reputation.

You can also use both platforms to upload and analyze images to learn more about them. Gemini also allows you to pull images from the web, which ChatGPT doesn’t currently offer.

Data tasks

ChatGPT offers more data-related tasks on its GPT-4o model or with a custom Data Analysts GPT for paid users. With it, you can upload files from Google Drive or OneDrive to analyze code and spreadsheets or convert files from one format to another.

If you have a Gemini Advanced plan, you can upload documents to Gemini, but it won’t be able to give you visual interpretations or other data-related tasks that ChatGPT can do. Instead, it will only offer summaries or feedback about the file.

Build custom GPTs

Another advantage ChatGPT has, which you may want to consider for ChatGPT vs. Gemini, is that you can create your own AI models with a specific purpose, known as GPTs.

Creating your own is only available for Plus or Enterprise users, but you can use the pre-built ones from the GPT menu below.

Voice mode

You can verbally interact with both AI chatbots, but as is the case with most features of ChatGPT vs. Gemini, Gemini is more limited in this aspect than ChatGPT.

With Gemini, you can send it a voice message, send it, and then Gemini will respond with text, and you hit play to listen to the responses.

ChatGPT's voice feature, on the other hand, is a bit more advanced, making it more useful for areas such as language learning. It will answer your questions in an average of 0.32 seconds for paid users, so you can verbally interact with it, pause or resume conversations, or even interrupt them on a Plus or Teams plan.

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: privacy and data handling

Now we can get into the real meat of the situation: With all of the data these AI models use, how does AI affect your privacy? Let’s start with ChatGPT, as they have had some issues with data breaches in the past.

ChatGPT data breach 2023

ChatGPT experienced a data breach in May 2023 due to a vulnerability in its open-source library. The breach exposed social security numbers, emails, names, phone numbers, job titles, employers, geographic locations, and social media profiles.

The breach impacted around 101,000 people and allowed hackers to view chat histories or, in some cases, users' payment information. Since then, OpenAI has addressed and patched the bug and launched a bug bounty program to encourage people to report security vulnerabilities.

ChatGPT accused of privacy violations

ChatGPT was once again under scrutiny, this time by the Italian government for violating the EU's data privacy rules. Italy’s data protection authority cited issues related to the mass collection of user data and the inability to control unsuitable content for minors.

Italy was one of the first countries to ban ChatGPT in 2023 because of privacy concerns and is pushing for stricter regulations regarding the platform's privacy.

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: privacy policy

To really understand how these platforms use your data, the best way is to check out their privacy policy and check for updates so you have the most recent overview of how these companies treat your data.

Of course, not everybody has the time to go through these lengthy documents, so we have summarized the most important information from each platform to give you a clear overview of how these companies treat your data.

ChatGPT privacy

Here, we took the privacy policy from the ChatGPT website and gave it the following prompt:

“Take information from this privacy policy, and provide direct quotes from it that would be a concern for people who value their privacy online.”

And here’s what we got:

"We collect personal data relating to you”

“We may use Personal Data for the following purposes: [...] To improve and develop our Services and conduct research”

“We may share your Personal Data, including information about your interaction with our Services, with government authorities, [...] to protect against legal liability.”

Personal information

We had to then prompt the service for more information about the types of data it collects, and we got the following:

“When you create an account with us, we will collect information associated with your account, including your name, contact information, account credentials, date of birth, payment information, and transaction history”

“We collect Personal Data that you provide in the input to our Services (‘Content’), including your prompts and other content you upload, such as files, images, and audio, depending on the features you use.”

“When you visit, use, or interact with the Services, we receive the following information about your visit, use, or interactions (‘Technical Information’): Log Data, Usage Data, Device Information, Location Information.”

Data collection

Again, we had to prompt ChatGPT further to explain what the privacy policy says about the data you input into the platform and what it does with it. We got this information:

“We collect Personal Data that you provide in the input to our Services (‘Content’), including your prompts and other content you upload, such as files, images, and audio, depending on the features you use.”

"We may use the data we collect to improve our Services. This includes reviewing the data for the purpose of training and improving our models."

"We may retain your chats for a period of time for the purpose of preventing abuse and improving the system."

To prevent this, you can only buy a team plan, which excludes data from training by default, or manage your privacy settings to permanently delete your chats after 30 days.

Even so, ChatGPT does collect a lot of data, and sharing it with third parties further increases the risk of a data breach, so if you have to use it, give it as little personal information as possible.

Gemini privacy policy

Gemini’s privacy policy is much longer and more in-depth than ChatGPTs', which doesn’t look good. Nevertheless, we will summarize the important parts and see how the privacy of ChatGPT vs. Gemini concludes.

This time, we used Gemini with the same prompt to give us an overview of what privacy concerns are hidden in its privacy document.

What data does Gemini use?

Here is an overview of your data Gemini uses:

"Gemini Apps conversations, related product usage information, info about your location, and your feedback."

"To help with quality and improve our products (such as generative machine-learning models that power Gemini Apps), human reviewers read, annotate, and process your Gemini Apps conversations."

Who has access to your conversations?

Gemini claims that it does not sell personal information to anyone, but its employees review your conversations. Here’s what Gemini has to say about who has access to your conversations:

“we select a subset of conversations and use automated tools to help remove user identifying information (such as email addresses and phone numbers).”

“These sample conversations are reviewed by trained reviewers and kept for up to three years”

Gemini does warn its users to never enter sensitive information in your Gemini Apps conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see, and it does show this message whenever you start a new chat, so at least there’s more transparency there than with ChatGPT.

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: which one is better?

ChatGPT is overall better for its features. Voice interactions, data management, team plans, and the option to build your own GPT are all above what Gemini offers. Although you do have to prompt it to search the web for information at times, it is still good at giving you what you need.

Gemini, on the other hand, is better for its image creation features, which may be a better tool for AI tools for creatives. However, it isn’t as advanced as ChatGPT and sometimes refuses to give answers to even the simplest prompts.

When it comes to privacy, ChatGPT vs. Gemini doesn’t really have a clear winner, as both require your data to improve the machine learning and the future of the service.

Gemini may have the slight edge, as they haven’t been a part of a data breach, but it’s still part of Google, so it’s notoriously bad for your privacy which is why Internxt Drive is becoming the go-to alternative for private cloud storage.

Whichever one you choose, remember to never enter any personal information and clear your chat history to prevent old data from becoming exposed online.