Meta AI vs. ChatGPT: Which is better? [2025]

The AI chatbot wars are heating up, and two of the biggest contenders are OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta's Meta AI. Both are powerful and capable AI-powered chatbots based on state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs), but they do have plenty of differences. 

I've tried every major AI chatbot out there—and written about most of them—and here I'll look at ChatGPT and Meta AI on their own merits and compare them against each other. Even if ChatGPT Plus is miles better than Meta AI (it is), $20/month is a lot, so the comparison between the two free plans still matters. 

If you're trying to decide which one should be your virtual assistant, keep reading.

Table of contents:

• Meta AI vs. ChatGPT at a glance

• Both chatbots use state-of-the-art AI models

• ChatGPT is more powerful

• Meta AI is still reliable for everyday tasks

• Both models can still hallucinate and misunderstand prompts

• ChatGPT can create better images, but Meta AI is better for quick ideation

• Meta AI works across Meta apps, while ChatGPT integrates more broadly using Zapier

• ChatGPT vs. Meta AI: Which should you use?

Meta AI vs. ChatGPT at a glance

ChatGPT and MetaAI are both powerful tools. Here's a quick comparison, but read on for a more detailed breakdown.

Both chatbots use state-of-the-art AI models

Whether you're using ChatGPT or Meta AI, the chatbot is really a specially tuned frontend interface for a powerful, general-purpose large language model. Both OpenAI and Meta are at the forefront of AI research, so both chatbots rely on the latest generation of AI models. 

• ChatGPT uses OpenAI's GPT family of models, including the multimodal GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 mini, as well as its newest series of AI chain-of-thought reasoning o-series models called o3 and o4-mini.

• Meta AI uses a fine-tuned version of Meta's Llama 4, one of the best open models available.

But even though both chatbots use modern AI models, not everything else is equal.

ChatGPT is more powerful

Across the board, ChatGPT is a more powerful chatbot than Meta AI. This isn't to say that Meta AI is bad—I'll discuss its strengths in a bit—but it lacks a few big features and makes more mistakes with difficult questions. 

For example, even though Llama 4 is a multimodal model that should be able to interact with images, that capability hasn't yet been fully integrated into Meta AI.

ChatGPT is multimodal when you use GPT-4o. This means that, in addition to text prompts, it can understand images and audio prompts—as well as respond with them. This gives you way more options, as ChatGPT can help you identify things in photos, answer questions about graphs and charts, and even work as a voice assistant through its smartphone app. 

If you want to get even more multimodal, you can use ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode in conjunction with your phone's camera to have a real-time conversation about the world around you. Meta AI has a voice mode, but it's less polished and can't offer live commentary based on what your camera sees.

You can also upload documents, spreadsheets, and PDFs and use ChatGPT to summarize them, answer questions about them, or even turn information in them into graphs. 

In fact, if you're working with data (or math problems) in general, ChatGPT is a better bet—especially if you use one of the o3 or o4 models; they're better at processing complex tasks that require a high level of logical reasoning.

ChatGPT is also a lot more extensible. It offers GPTs, user-created add-ons that can do things like integrate with Wolfram Alpha, play games, search scientific papers, and a whole lot more. With ChatGPT Plus or Enterprise, you can even create a GPT using your own data. 

Finally, ChatGPT's deep research feature is useful for everything from generating competitive analysis reports to designing the ideal home gym setup for your garage. Even free users get access to five "lightweight" research reports per month. Meta AI doesn't currently offer a deep research feature.

Meta AI is still reliable for everyday tasks

While it isn't quite as impressive as ChatGPT, Meta AI still has a lot of power. The examples above are meant to show you where ChatGPT is better, but unless you're really pushing the limits of what LLMs can do, this may not matter. 

Meta AI also makes fewer logical mistakes now that it relies on Meta's more powerful Llama 4 model. It expertly handles the same trick questions that used to trip up the prior model.

When it comes to generating text, answering typical questions, summarizing information from around the web, and generally doing chatbot things, the results you get from ChatGPT and Meta AI can be pretty hard to tell apart. 

If it matters to you, both ChatGPT and Meta AI use Bing as their default search engine, though Meta also lets you use Google if you ask. Both reliably return decent results.

Both models can still hallucinate and misunderstand prompts

For all their seeming intelligence, you have to be careful with both ChatGPT and Meta AI. While neither is likely to start spouting nonsense in response to a benign prompt, both can and do hallucinate—in other words, just make stuff up. 

They can also misunderstand prompts and just get random things wrong. 

And despite its multimodal talents, GPT-4o still struggles with trickier tasks like puzzles that require creative thinking. ChatGPT's reasoning models, like o3, can handle them more reliably.

Unfortunately, relying on the latest reasoning models doesn't protect you from hallucinations. Some benchmarks have even found that o3 and o4-mini hallucinate at higher rates than previous models.

So, while both chatbots are pretty impressive, maybe go elsewhere for medical advice.

ChatGPT can create better images, but Meta AI is better for quick ideation

While both chatbots have integrated image generators, ChatGPT offers more sophisticated results, especially since it started using GPT-4o for images rather than DALL·E 3. Free users currently get up to three image generations per day, while ChatGPT Plus users can create dozens. 

One slight drawback is the processing time: you need to wait a minute or two for ChatGPT to create your image. If you want to generate a bunch of styles and ideate your way to a final image, the process is slow. Still, the output is reliably good.

Still, Meta AI has a few tricks worth noting. In addition to being free to use for unlimited images, it generates images in a few seconds and gives you four options to choose from. You also get access to an image editing suite that makes it easy to experiment with different styles. All of this makes Meta a better choice for brainstorming.

Meta AI can also animate the images it creates. It won't always generate the most realistic motion, but it's fun to turn static AI-generated pictures into something more. 

Of course, if you really want to create moving images, OpenAI's video generator, Sora, is one of the most advanced.

Meta AI works across Meta apps, while ChatGPT integrates more broadly using Zapier

Meta AI is now integrated with Meta's social media and messaging platforms: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. 

As you scroll through Facebook, you can now ask Meta AI for more information about something mentioned in a post. You can chat with Meta AI in Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, or prompt it in chats with your friends. You can also trigger it from the search bar in any app. 

This is by far the biggest reason to use Meta AI. If you spend a lot of time on Facebook or Instagram, its chatbot is right there for you to use without having to bounce off to another app. While its web app falls behind ChatGPT in quite a few ways, there's no competition when it comes to quickly prompting an AI through Instagram.

While ChatGPT's integrations don't run as deep on social media, it can integrate with a far wider variety of apps and services through GPTs. And because ChatGPT integrates with Zapier, you can access the power of ChatGPT from all the other apps you use. That means you can build fully automated AI-powered workflows that help your business move faster. Learn more about how to automate ChatGPT, or get started with one of these pre-built templates. 

ChatGPT and Meta AI both have dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android, so if you're just looking for a way to access AI on the go, there's no limitation on either platform. Only ChatGPT has a desktop app, though.

ChatGPT vs. Meta AI: Which should you use?

Right now, the choice between ChatGPT and Meta AI feels pretty easy. 

ChatGPT is the more powerful, feature-filled, and functional chatbot. It's extensible, multimodal, and generally more accurate. If you're going to only use one chatbot, it's the one you should use. And that's even more true if you're prepared to pay the $20/month for ChatGPT Plus. Access to GPT-4o is far more limited on the free plan, as are other features like image generation, file uploads, voice mode, and deep research.

With that said, Meta AI has its uses. Its integration with Meta's other apps is handy. It's cool that in group chats, you can have it search the web for you or quickly generate wild and weird images. And the fact that it can quickly create and edit images for free is a major plus. Still, it's really hard to imagine relying on Meta AI as your only chatbot.

But that's the thing: since both ChatGPT and Meta AI are available for free, you can try both—and even use both. It isn't as if subscribing to ChatGPT Plus bans you from asking Meta AI to look up dinner spots in a WhatsApp chat.

Related reading:

• Claude: A guide to Anthropic's AI models and chatbot

• Copilot vs. ChatGPT: Which is best?

• Perplexity vs. ChatGPT: Which is better?

• The best ChatGPT alternatives

This article was originally published in May 2024 by Harry Guinness and has also had contributions from Jessica Lau. The most recent update was in July 2025.