Our Gemini Test Drive: Honest Review

See how Google integrated a premium chatbot into its ecosystem + real use cases!

👋 Hey, I’m Stepan and welcome to a ✨ subscriber-only edition ✨ of Creators’ AI. By subscribing, you directly support Creators' AI's mission to deliver top AI insights & practical knowledge without ads or clutter. Your subscription allows us to grow our dedicated team and curate the most important AI Tools, Stories, and Tutorials in one place. - Stepan

---

Intro

Earlier this month, Google dropped us a bunch of updates for its chatbot (and you know it if you read our weekly newsletter!). Bard was rebranded to become Gemini, upgraded to a version labeled Advanced, and got its own app.

This is a much-improved chatbot based on the Ultra 1.0 model. Google plans that while the basic Gemini will compete with the free ChatGPT, the Advanced version will begin its crusade against ChatGPT-4, which is also available on a subscription basis. After all, their features and performance are very close.

Here, we could hit listing the specifications and benchmark results, but we won't do that. First of all, Google is not very eager to share such details, and secondly... It's boring. Instead, let's better test the user experience in Google Advanced, determine its main advantage over ChatGPT, and figure out which prompts you should use.

Before we get started, I want to point out that if you use Google products or Android devices a lot, you should take a closer look at Gemini. And as we go through the newsletter, I'll try to explain in detail where this advice comes from.

Sharing is caring! Refer someone who started a learning journey in AI!

Getting started

It won't take you much time and effort to become a Gemini Advanced user. If you already have a Google account, go to the official website of the chatbot in the Advanced section, sign up, and activate your subscription. Google offers a two-month trial period, after which it will start charging $19.99 monthly.

Currently, the model is available in 150 countries worldwide, and users from some countries can already download the new app from Google Play.

A nice bonus of subscribing to Advanced is that users also get access to 2 TB of cloud storage, Gemini features integrated into Docs and Gmail, and Google One’s benefits.

What makes Google different from others?

When we talk about chatbots, the first thing that comes to mind is ChatGPT. And that's okay; OpenAI has earned the title of pioneer among advanced models to make its platform synonymous with artificial intelligence. But despite all the effort and hard work, OpenAI still doesn't have the capabilities that Google has.

The answer: an ecosystem. On this point, Google wins not only over OpenAI but over the entire big-tech space. All of these capabilities are available to Gemini as well.

You might be thinking, why such a long introduction? It's simple: the main feature of Gemini is its ability to work with third-party applications from Google. In this case, the chatbot surpasses any analogs. Something tells me that the gap will only increase.

And now, we will check Gemini Advanced on real cases.

---

Traveling

I love traveling, but I have never had a good trip planned out. So, I do everything on the spot. Maybe Gemini Advanced can help to solve my problem. To test it out, I prepared a simple prompt dedicated to a day trip to Portugal. Here’s what I asked:

I'm going on a short trip to Lisbon. Make a tourist plan and a route around the city. I will have about 8 hours for sightseeing.

And this is what I got:

And that's where the magic happens. As you can see, Gemini correctly understood my question and made a customized route. But it didn't limit itself to textual advice.

Using Maps, the chatbot generated a step-by-step route throughout the city and marked important landmarks. All that was left for me to do was to implement the plan.

---

Learning

We already used a similar prompt when we compared four chatbots in a previous newsletter, but now we'll see how Google's premium AI handles it. We will learn Spanish from videos with native speakers. Here's what I asked:

I want to learn Spanish. The most comfortable way for me to learn is to watch videos from native speakers. What can you suggest?

And this is what I got:

Here again, Gemini used its ecosystem to generate a quality response. But a set of YouTube links is no surprise to anyone nowadays, so I asked the chatbot to summarize the information from the first suggested video.

That's better. In a few seconds, I get an extended squeeze that accurately describes the content of an introductory video for those who want to learn a new language.

But how does Gemini Advanced handle work and business-related prompts?

---

Work & Business