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- Testing from OmniCalculator suggests Claude and ChatGPT are not the smartest
- The report finds Grok 4.2 performs best in logic and problem-solving
- Claude still leads in writing quality and tone
ChatGPT is still the most popular AI chatbot around, even with the exodus that's underway to Claude, but is it the cleverest? A new report from OmniCalculator suggests that ChatGPT might not be the smartest AI around.
When it comes to the quantifiable math ability of these AI chatbots, the smartest free AI model is, rather surprisingly, Grok. xAI's Grok 4.2 model specifically. That doesn't mean anything about its writing style and ability, or anything else chatbots can do, but it does suggest that it might have the edge in math prowess.
Claude's winning style
Claude’s recent rise in popularity has been driven by people wanting to quit ChatGPT over unpopular AI military deals, but also by how it composes answers and writes its responses.
Article continues belowThe quality is hard to quantify compared to math skills, but easy to recognize. The OmniCalculator report highlighted Claude 4.6 as the best at it, able to process and respond to long documents without losing coherence and maintaining a consistent voice throughout. For the average person, this is much more important than which AI can make it through complicated logic and math problems.
It even comes out in the facsimiles of personality offered by the AI models. Claude is more willing to acknowledge uncertainty, which can make its answers feel measured rather than overconfident. That tone can create the impression of deeper thinking, regardless of any underlying reasoning.
Legacy models, including earlier versions of ChatGPT and Claude, were found to revise or second-guess their own answers roughly 60% of the time in complex problem-solving scenarios. That kind of instability does not always show up in casual use, but it becomes obvious when you push these systems through multi-step reasoning tasks where consistency matters.
But Grok 4.2 cuts that instability rate down to 33.1%, meaning it is far less likely to backtrack or alter its conclusions mid-process. That's great for reasoning and logic, but not much help in mimicking the smooth tones that make other models feel more polished.
Specialist subjects
The distinction in ability is not trivial. Good writing and strong reasoning skills (or the AI facsimiles of the same) are related skills, but they are not identical. A model can produce elegant prose while making subtle errors in logic. Another can arrive at the correct answer but converse in clunky ways that seem very obsolete.
The margins are narrow, though, and no model performs flawlessly. Even the top performers make mistakes, sometimes on relatively simple problems. The idea of a single smartest AI is a bit nonsensical in that way. The clear winner in one context can fall back in another.
And there's no such thing as a permanent winner. Each of the leading models occupies a slightly different space. Similarly, the underlying complexity of what people mean by intelligence is complex and ever-evolving. Which AI chatbot to rely on is situational. The best model for drafting an email may not be the best one for solving a technical problem. The most reliable assistant for coding might not produce the most natural-sounding text.
As competition intensifies, companies are likely to lean further into their strengths, refining specific capabilities rather than chasing an all-purpose solution. The result could be a landscape where specialization matters as much as scale. So the question of which AI is smartest will probably always have the answer, "depends."
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