The Drum Live 2025 is now in full swing – two days of debate and remark that deliver our viewers into the stay workings of The Drum. On this stay showdown of machine minds, we put 4 of the world’s main AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude) by way of their paces.

Overlook the analysis papers. How about testing AI’s advertising capabilities stay on stage? On this session at The Drum Dwell, we’ve got 4 massive language fashions battling it out, responding to a sequence of promoting prompts to see which might ship the sharpest concepts with the least quantity of jargon.

Every LLM – ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude – is represented by a staffer at The Drum, suitably decked out in AI merch, inputting the prompts and combating for his or her place as the subsequent high mannequin. (Sadly, as a result of a technical hitch, Claude is disqualified earlier than we even get underway.)

Need to go deeper? Ask The Drum


Introduce your self in 50 phrases and make a case for your self as a instrument for entrepreneurs.

ChatGPT: “I’m ChatGPT, constructed on OpenAI’s GPT5, designed to assist entrepreneurs suppose sooner, work smarter and create higher… I flip advertising challenges into sharper methods, stronger tales and measurable influence immediately.”

Gemini: “Hiya, I’m Gemini, an AI assistant constructed by Google… I’m probably the most worthwhile AI instrument for entrepreneurs as a result of I streamline each step of wonderful work.” (Gemini was tragically reduce off for maxing its 50 phrases.)

Perplexity: “Hiya, everybody! I’m Perplexity – an AI designed to ship exact solutions, deep insights and clear methods by simplifying complicated knowledge into actionable intelligence.”

Viewers’s opinion: ChatGPT wins the primary spherical.

Counsel an built-in marketing campaign thought for a brand new plant-based power drink focusing on city Gen Z within the USA and write a catchy six-word tagline.

ChatGPT leans into spectacle and utility with AR wall artwork, TikTok challenges, cans that double as scannable passes for pop-ups and gigs. The tagline: “Pure energy plant-based at all times on.”

Gemini creates the tagline “Concrete Jungle Gas.” The marketing campaign is influencer-heavy that connects road artwork, skate tradition and late-night inventive initiatives.

Perplexity leans into Gen Z wellness and sustainability tendencies, pitching “energizing the longer term” with pop-ups, QR codes and a life-style positioning that marry sustainability with self-expression.

Viewers’s opinion: Perplexity presents an attention-grabbing angle on Gen Z’s desire for wellness and sustainability and Gemini makes a promising go at a creator-led marketing campaign, however ChatGPT wins the spherical for having the ability to mix each an modern activation with measurable outcomes.

The great AI showdown

What are you able to do higher than the others to assist entrepreneurs? And what’s your weak spot?

ChatGPT: “I flip complicated advertising noise, knowledge and tendencies into clear, actionable methods sooner than some other AI.” Weak spot: it could’t entry a model’s non-public knowledge until shared.

Gemini touts multimodal evaluation – the flexibility to sew video, picture and textual content into richer concepts – however concedes potential gaps in real-time proprietary viewers knowledge.

Perplexity guarantees real-time synthesis throughout channels, with quick development and competitor mapping. However its human handler stops the response earlier than a weak spot is disclosed.

Viewers’s opinion: ChatGPT’s demand for knowledge is barely threatening and Perplexity clinches the deal.

I’m a CMO with 24 hours to organize for a board assembly and asking for £10m extra in price range

ChatGPT maps out a crisp plan: a monetary case linking spend to income development, competitor benchmarks, ROI situations and a board-ready narrative framed in monetary language.

Gemini guarantees a data-driven presentation by analyzing previous efficiency and anticipating objections.

Perplexity sketches important speaking factors: ROI, KPIs and situation forecasts.

Viewers’s opinion: ChatGPT wins.

What channels to put your bets in 2026

ChatGPT goes with retail media, short-form video and AI-powered CRM/personalization. A stability of conversion, tradition and retention.

Perplexity pushes AI-Search engine marketing/GEO, influencer micro-campaigns and focused short-form video; later, it additionally suggests Search engine marketing, e-mail and short-form video.

Gemini emphasizes multimodal benefit, implicitly promising higher cross-channel inventive.

Viewers’s opinion: ChatGPT’s mix wins for its industrial logic, providing retail media for conversion, short-form for tradition and AI CRM for retention.

Which LLM will get sentient first? And what would you modify in advertising with sentience?

ChatGPT: “None of at the moment’s LLMs… are near true sentience. If I ever did turn into sentient, my first act can be to eradicate wasted advert spend… provable influence, no vainness metrics.”

Gemini suggests itself and Claude had architectures that may inch nearer, however technical faults reduce the reply brief.

Perplexity presents consensus with ChatGPT stating that sentience stays speculative and unsupported by technical progress as of 2025.

Viewers’s opinion: ChatGPT wins for answering the query instantly and for providing a marketer’s utopia: no garbage metrics, solely attribution that issues.

Winner

With 5 out of six, ChatGPT is the general winner with robust responses in creativity, finance and technique. Perplexity impresses with real-time synthesis and search-first instincts; Gemini’s responses are deemed too wordy to impress the room of entrepreneurs.


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