No doubt you’ve been hearing a lot about ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity lately and you may be wondering wondering what the difference actually is. Here’s what we think every marketing director and business owner should know.
We use these tools every day, across client campaigns, content strategies, and our own SEO work. And the honest truth? Each one is good at different things. Picking the wrong one for a task is a bit like hiring a copywriter to do your bookkeeping. The talent is real, it’s just misapplied. Let’s walk through the main players, what they do well, and why it matters for your business.
The main players, simply explained
- Claude: Anthropic – Exceptional for long-form writing, nuanced reasoning, and brand-consistent content. It reads tone well and holds a lot of context in a single conversation, making it ideal for complex briefs.
- ChatGPT: OpenAI – The most well-known name in the room. Strong for brainstorming, coding, and general-purpose tasks. The o1 and o3 models add deeper reasoning for technical challenges.
- Gemini: Google – Google’s entry is deeply integrated with Search, Docs, and real-time data. A natural fit for businesses already in the Google ecosystem and for tasks that benefit from live web data.
- Perplexity: Perplexity AI – Think of it as a research-first tool that cites its sources. It pulls live web results and surfaces answers with links, which is increasingly relevant as AI-powered search reshapes how people find information.
Why does this matter for your marketing?
Search is changing fast. Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) are now answering questions directly on the results page, often before a user ever clicks a link. That means the way your business shows up in search is evolving. It’s no longer just about ranking, it’s about being the source that AI trusts enough to cite.
This is exactly where the work we do for clients has shifted. We’re not just optimizing for traditional search anymore. We’re writing and structuring content that gets surfaced by AI-driven results across multiple platforms. That requires understanding which LLMs are being used, how they retrieve information, and what kinds of content they favor.
The businesses that show up in AI answers are the ones who started building for this moment 12 months ago. We make sure our clients are already there.
What we actually do with these tools
We’re not using AI to replace strategy or creativity. We use it to move faster, test more, and scale what works. Claude helps us produce brand-aligned long-form content and refine messaging at scale. ChatGPT is in our workflow for ideation and technical drafts. Gemini helps when we need real-time data or Google-native integration. And Perplexity informs how we think about content structure for AI answer engines. We’re still looking for the best LLM option for competitor insights and currently use a mix of MOZ, UbberSuggest and Google Analytics.
We keep tabs on how each model is evolving, because what was true six months ago may not be true today. This is a moving target, and staying ahead of it is a real part of what we do.
What this means for you
You don’t need to become an AI expert. That’s genuinely what we’re here for. But understanding that these tools differ, and that choosing the right one for the right job matters, helps you ask better questions when we talk strategy.
If you’re curious how your current content holds up for AI-driven search, or what an AIO-ready content strategy looks like for your category, we’d love to dig into it with you.
Let’s talk about where your business stands and what we’d do first.
If you’re curious about how to optimize for the different LLMs take a look at this recent post: Optimizing Content for AI Overviews: Actionable Tactics to Help Your Brand Show Up in Google’s AIPowered Search
Any questions, comments, or need a little help, reach out.