Claude and Gemini are now better than ChatGPT for most tasks

With Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3 Pro, ChatGPT is now clearly behind. On raw intelligence and speed, both models beat GPT-5 Thinking on most benchmarks. More importantly, they lead on my vibe checks and those of most others.

The Claude web app has many features that Gemini lacks (e.g. skills, memory, attach Google Doc by pasting a URL). So: Opus 4.5 should now be your default model.¹ But Gemini sometimes wins on harder tasks, so use both.

Some details:

• ChatGPT remains best for web search, followed by Gemini. Claude is a distant third, but may be improving. (Confidence: High)
• For many simple tasks, you'll get answers of roughly the same quality from all models. (Confidence: High)
• ChatGPT is better at French than the other models. (Confidence: Medium)
• Claude Code dominates Codex CLI at the moment—complete reversal from October! (Confidence: High)