- Bard
- ChatGPT
- Compact Cars
- Electric Vehicles
- Family Sedans
- Luxury sedans
- Sports Cars
- SUVs
- Microsoft Bing Chat
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), many AI-powered digital assistants have come to market that do everything from assisting you to structure your tasks for the day to actually doing your work for you.
These programmes can also act like clever search engines as they offer detailed results for simple inputs without the hassle of combing through links and data yourself, even if they sometimes have questionable accuracy.
With this in mind, we wanted to find out what’s the best car on the market – according to the technological hiveminds we call AI.
We chose the simplest prompt we could to see how clever these bots really are, which was: “What is the best car?”
Bard
Bard is the newest AI bot on the scene and is powered by Google.
It was the quickest to answer out of the three programmes on test and also gave the most straightforward results.
Bard’s answers were:
- Toyota Corolla – A reliable and fuel-efficient car that is perfect for everyday driving
- Honda Civic – A sporty and fun-to-drive car that is also fuel-efficient
- Mazda 3 – A stylish and well-equipped car that offers a great driving experience
- Hyundai Elantra – A value-packed car that offers a lot of features for the price
- Kia Forte – A value-packed car that is perfect for budget-minded shoppers
For its unique selling point, Bard was the only AI programme that provided a short explanation for why the particular car it chose is considered the “best.”
ChatGPT
Unlike Bard, ChatGPT didn’t provide a list of names for the simple “What is the best car?” prompt – rather, it gave a few famous automotive brands such as Toyota and BMW.
Since this isn’t what we’re after, we edited the command very slightly and included the term “with names”, and what came out on the other end was a detailed selection of vehicles in several categories that the internet has decided are the best ones.
ChatGPT’s categories and answers were:
Compact Cars
- Ford Focus
- Honda Civic
- Mazda 3
- Toyota Corolla
- VW Golf
Electric Vehicles
- Audi e-tron
- Jaguar I-PACE
- Porsche Taycan
- Tesla Model 3
- Tesla Model S
Family Sedans
- Honda Accord
- Hyundai Sonata
- Mazda 6
- Toyota Camry
- VW Passat
Luxury sedans
- Audi A8
- BMW 7 Series
- Jaguar XJ
- Lexus LS
- Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Sports Cars
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Ferrari 488 GTB
- Lamborghini Huracan
- McLaren 720S
- Porsche 911
SUVs
- Audi Q7
- BMW X5
- Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class
- Range Rover
- Volvo XC90
All these vehicles made the cut as they have often been “recognized for their quality, performance, and features,” according to ChatGPT.
Microsoft Bing Chat
What made Bing unique is the fact that it offers Creative, Balanced, or Precise answers, as well as provides links to the results it spits out.
To keep things consistent, we selected Balanced and once again entered our question.
Bing’s answers were:
- BMW i4
- Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing
- Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Honda Accord
- Honda Civic
- Porsche 718
- Toyota GR86 / Subaru BRZ
Interestingly, Bing sourced its results from US-based Car and Driver’s “10 best cars of 2023” article, but also took it a step further and included vehicles that were “highly recommended” by South African owners.
Unsurprisingly, the locally-focused list was completely occupied by bakkies and included the Isuzu D-Max, Toyota Hilux, and VW Amarok.
Keep in mind that none of the cars mentioned by any of the AI applications is the definitive “best” car for every person out there.
As Bard so eloquently puts it: “The best car is the one that best suits your needs and budget.”
Keyword: The best car – Chosen by AI