ChatGPT vs Bing Chat: What's the difference and which one to use?

Natural language chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat have become the latest focal point in the tech industry. You’ve probably already heard about their uncanny ability to write essays, poems, and even computer code. Beyond that, these tools can also simplify complex topics and summarize entire novels. But even though both look similar on the surface, the quality of responses actually differs depending on which service you use. So in this article, let’s take a look at the differences separating ChatGPT vs Bing Chat.

What can you do with Bing Chat and ChatGPT?

ChatGPT and Bing Chat are examples of generative AI, which means they have the ability to generate brand-new text that has never been written before. Naturally, this kind of AI is only useful if it can provide accurate information, so how does it work?

In a nutshell, both rely on a large language model developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI. ChatGPT’s underlying model, named GPT-3.5, has been trained on billions of text samples gathered from across the internet. However, Bing Chat uses the more advanced GPT-4 language model. Still, both chatbots have the ability to generate text that looks like it was written by a human. We’ll go through some examples in the next section.

Bing also goes one step further as it can search the internet for information in real time. Admittedly, this is a double-edged sword since any misinformation it stumbles upon can introduce bias into the response. However, in most cases, Bing Chat also cites its sources at the bottom of each response. This allows you to easily verify the output’s accuracy by simply clicking on one of the citations.

On that note, it’s important to not completely trust either chatbot as both ChatGPT and Bing Chat are susceptible to “hallucinating”. That’s when a chatbot makes up a response that sounds convincing but has no basis in reality.

ChatGPT vs Bing Chat: Accuracy and knowledge

If you’re looking for information on a technical subject or recent event, Bing Chat will almost always deliver a higher-quality response as it can search the internet. But if you’re simply after historical knowledge, ChatGPT will do reasonably as well since it has some knowledge of events prior to 2021.

For example, you can use Bing while shopping to compare the pros and cons of newly-released products or to prepare a personalized itinerary for your next vacation. Both of these tasks require a fair amount of web-based research, which will take you far longer to do manually.

On the other hand, ChatGPT fares better when it comes to creative prompts as it’s tailored for conversation. While you could ask Bing Chat to write a poem, story, or essay, you’ll find that it’s extremely fact-driven and that may come at the expense of creativity.

That said, Bing does let you choose from three modes, namely Creative, Balanced, and Precise. The Creative mode comes the closest to ChatGPT’s default behavior, as you can see in the screenshot above. Even so, our testing found that ChatGPT provides longer responses.

ChatGPT vs Bing: How and where to use them?

ChatGPT launched in late 2022 as a web-based tool. That open access continues to this day but that may change once OpenAI gathers enough data and the project exits the research preview phase.

Bing, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy a similarly wide release. Even though Microsoft tested the feature for months leading up to its launch, the company opted for a gradual release. In other words, you need to sign up for a waitlist and wait for at least a few days before you can use Bing Chat for the first time.

On average, expect to wait approximately two weeks, although this may change at any point. You can also use Microsoft’s Edge web browser and download the Bing app on mobile to improve your chances of getting selected sooner.

The good news is that once you do gain access to Bing Chat, you can use it on many more platforms. While ChatGPT only works in a web browser, Microsoft has brought its AI chatbot to mobile apps and even Skype chats. The former means you can interact with Bing Chat via voice like you would with Google Assistant.

ChatGPT vs Bing: Limitations and pricing

OpenAI imposes very few restrictions on ChatGPT’s usage, even if you don’t pay for it. You may run into some errors if you send off too many messages within a few minutes, but that’s meant to combat abuse. You can also have relatively longer conversations with the chatbot – no per-conversation limits to speak of.

That said, you have the option of paying for a $20 monthly ChatGPT Plus subscription. Doing so grants you three benefits: priority access to the service, faster response times, and early access to new features. Paid accounts do not get higher-quality responses, unlike some ChatGPT alternatives out there.

Meanwhile, Bing can understand most major languages including French, German, and Japanese. However, it does have a few other limitations. You can only have 150 conversations with it in a single day. And each thread is limited to 15 replies, so long back-and-forth conversations may not always be possible. Microsoft has reduced these restrictions over time. But for now, the company says that most people find what they’re looking for within five replies or fewer.

ChatGPT will respond in other languages, but the underlying GPT-3.5 model was primarily trained on English samples and text. Approximately 92% of ChatGPT’s training data involved English. Responses in other languages will also use up more tokens and you will run into ChatGPT’s character limit sooner.

With Bing Chat, you cannot pay for higher limits or better responses. That’s unlikely to change in the future since the company uses Bing to deliver ads and product recommendations. That said, it can create AI-generated images for you, which ChatGPT cannot do at the moment.

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