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Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Technology
Amanda Caswell

AI Madness: The ultimate chatbot showdown

AI Madness logo.

March isn’t just for college basketball anymore — this year, we’re bringing the competition to AI! Welcome to AI Madness, a bracket-style tournament where the best AI chatbots battle it out to see which one truly reigns supreme.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be putting eight AI contenders through a series of head-to-head matchups, testing their accuracy, creativity, speed, and overall usefulness. By the end of the tournament, we’ll have a clear winner—the chatbot that delivers the best real-world performance across multiple categories.

We’ve carefully selected the top AI chatbots, each bringing unique strengths (and weaknesses) to the table.

  • ChatGPT – OpenAI’s flagship AI, known for its conversational abilities, coding skills, and deep knowledge.
  • Google Gemini – Google's multimodal AI, designed to handle text, images, and more.
  • Claude – Anthropic’s AI, praised for its ethical AI approach and natural responses.
  • Grok – The AI built by Elon Musk’s xAI, tuned for humor and real-time insights.
  • DeepSeek – A rising AI designed for deep reasoning and factual accuracy.
  • Perplexity – A research-based AI optimized for fact-finding and search capabilities.
  • Meta AI – Meta’s contender, designed for interactive engagement and multimodal capabilities.
  • Mistral – A powerful open-source AI that promises advanced text generation and coding skills.

We’ve pitted the most popular chatbots head-to-head in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament.

(Image credit: Future)

Each battle will be decided based on our six key criteria and scored on the following:

  • Accuracy & Factuality: Are responses correct and up to date?
  • Creativity & Natural Language: How engaging is the response?
  • Usefulness & Depth: Can it complete complex tasks well?
  • Multimodal Abilities: Can it handle text, images, and videos
  • User Experience & Interface: Is it easy to use and accessible?

We’ll start by introducing each AI and set the stage for the matchups. From there, the head-to-head battles begin! We’ll test each AI on general knowledge, creative writing, coding, real-world tasks, and multimodal abilities.

After the initial rounds we will break down the semi-finals, with leaderboards and highlights.

And finally, we’ll crown the AI Madness Champion—revealing the best chatbot for real-world use.

So, who will take the title? Follow along as we put AI to the ultimate test. Let the AI showdown begin!

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