I've been finding it leaps and bounds above other models but I'm only using it via aistudio. I haven't tried any IDE integration or similar, so can't talk to that. I do still have to tell it to stop it with the effusive praise (I guess that also helps reduce context windows)

I have the same sentiment. I've never really had success using Gemini outside of translation. Although, even with that, Gemini would often refuse and I had to remind it that it does actually know other languages.

My most recent trials output single commas as responses to basic questions or it simply refuses the task on ethical grounds such as generating a photo of a backpack wearing a hoodie for some reason (it claimed harmful stereotypes and instead generated an ape).

Refusing to do perfectly ethical tasks is probably the most consist problem I've had.

I use Gemini almost exclusively for coding and 2.5 Pro is extremely good at it. It has revised hundreds of lines of academic code for me at a time and the results run correctly with only minor revision.

I will also say whatever they use for the AI search summary is good enough for me like 50% of the time I google something, but those are generally the simpler 50% of queries.

It depends on what you use it for. For answering questions I tend to prefer GPT-5, but for writing (e.g. turn these informally written ideas/bullet points into a report/proposal/etc., now shorten it a bit, emphasize this idea more, etc.) it's the best by far IMHO.

I agree. I think it comes down OpenAI's superior post-training.

ChatGPT is better at:

A) Interpreting what I'm asking it for me needing to provide additional explicit context.

B) Formatting answers in a way that are easily digestible.

> Google Workspace at my job, so Gemini is baked in.

I think the "baked in" Gemini models are different, try using Gemini through the actual Gemini site.

Maybe you are using it wrong.