Anthropic pulled something similar with 3.6 initially, with a preview that had massive token output and then a real release with barely half -- which significantly curtails certain use cases.
That said, to-date, Gemini has outperformed GPT-5 and GPT5.1 on any task I've thrown at them together. Too bad Gemini CLI is still barely useful and prone to the same infinite loop issues that have plagued it for over a year.
I think Google has genuinely released a preview of a model that leapfrogs all other models. I want to see if that is what actually makes it to production before I change anything major in my workflows.
it's contemporary vim vs emacs at this point
Experiences aside, Gemini 3 beats GPT-5 on enough evals that it seems fair to say that it is a better model. This appears in line with public consensus, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions seem to be centered around search.
When I asked both ChatGPT 5.1 Extended Thinking and Gemini 3 Pro Preview High for best daily casual socks both responses were okay and had a lot of the same options, but while the ChatGPT response included pictures, specs scraped from the product pages and working links, the Gemini response had no links. After asking for links, Gemini gave me ONLY dead links.
That is a recurring experience, Gemini seems to be supremely lazy to its own detriment quite often.
A minute ago I asked for best CR2032 deal for Aqara sensors in Norway, and Gemini recommended the long discontinued IKEA option, because it didn't bother to check for updated information. ChatGPT on the other hand actually checked prices and stock status for all the options it gave me.
I pay for Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT.
Gemini 3 replaced ChatGPT for me and if things don't change I'll cancel ChatGPT for lack of usefulness.
At least, thanks to the hype, RAM and SSDs are becoming more expensive, which eats up all the savings from using AI and the profits from increased productivity /s?
