It’s an eternity in the world of AI generators: Microsoft Bing became available to early testers a month and a half ago and the queue disappeared last week. And while Google announced Bard the same week, the chatbot only became available to testers this week.

Of course we were there like chickens for a seat in the queue, and on Thursday morning the time was right: Google allowed access to the Bard. With this it is now possible to talk to and compare each of the chatbots.

Good to know: Bard only speaks English and no Dutch yet. It is not known when that will be. Officially, you can only use Bard in the US and UK, but of course we’re pretty good at digital tunneling to use Bard anyway.

In this article, all the answers have been translated from Bard, and in almost all cases also from Bing, because it was only fair that all exams were done in English. In addition to fact-finding prompts, reasoning, writing code, and travel advice, we also try to test the limits of what Bing and Bard allow or are willing to do. In addition, they talk to each other about what it’s like to be an AI-powered chatbot.

Illustration above article: Getty Images/Carol Yepes