Leading AI Chatbots in 2025: Public Sentiment on the Functionality(ies)

As AI chatbots continue evolving at a rapid pace, user sentiment in 2025 reflects a mix of enthusiasm, frustration, and adaptation.

From ChatGPT’s personality shifts to Gemini’s summarization tools and Microsoft Copilot’s productivity features, here’s how users are currently responding to the functionality of the most prominent AI assistants.

ChatGPT remains the most positively received chatbot in 2025, though a recent personality update drew user criticism for being overly polished.

Google’s Gemini excels at information summarization and multilingual support, but users find it less conversationally dynamic than ChatGPT.

Claude by Anthropic has strong enterprise features but faces user frustration due to session limits and tool instability, prompting a new premium plan.

Microsoft Copilot is well integrated in productivity tools and appreciated by businesses, but tech-savvy users are leaving due to reduced customization options.

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ChatGPT (OpenAI)

ChatGPT remains the most widely praised AI chatbot for general use, particularly for its highly interactive and natural language capabilities. Recent sentiment analysis shows that ChatGPT consistently receives the highest positive emotional feedback on app stores, with "joy" and "surprise" being dominant reactions (MIT Tech Review).

However, a controversial update in early 2025—dubbed the “glaze” personality—was rolled out to make ChatGPT sound friendlier and more polished. Instead, it was met with criticism for being overly sycophantic and unrelatable, prompting OpenAI to walk back the update after widespread user backlash (Wired).

On the functionality side, users have welcomed new features in the Pro and Team plans, including visual shopping suggestions and streamlined e-commerce integrations, which allow users to browse products and even make purchases directly within the chat window (TechCrunch). These tools, while still in phased rollout, signal a shift toward transactional AI.

Gemini (Google)

Gemini has built a reputation for reliable fact retrieval and tight integration with Google Search. It has been especially praised for features like AI Overviews, which provide brief, clear summaries of web content. In alpha testing, 90% of users rated these summaries as helpful and easy to understand (The Verge).

Despite the strong foundation, user sentiment toward Gemini is slightly less enthusiastic than for ChatGPT. Many users appreciate its ability to access real-time web data and handle multilingual queries, but some note that its responses can feel more mechanical and less creative in open-ended conversations (Forbes). This reflects its design priority: information accuracy over conversational personality.

Claude (Anthropic)

Anthropic’s Claude AI stands out for its structured, thoughtful responses and a strong reputation for ethical design. However, recent sentiment has been mixed. In early 2025, Pro users began complaining about frequent capacity errors, shortened session lengths, and toolset instability, especially when handling large files or team workflows (VentureBeat).

To address these concerns, Anthropic launched a new Claude Max plan at $200/month, which grants more robust access during peak usage times (Bloomberg). Simultaneously, new features such as integrated research tools and seamless compatibility with Google Workspace have been praised by professionals for their practical utility in enterprise environments.

Microsoft Copilot (Bing Chat and Microsoft 365)

Microsoft’s Copilot platform spans both consumer and enterprise use. On the personal side, users have welcomed features like Copilot Vision (AI-powered camera interpretation) and Memories (contextual reminders), though more technically advanced users have voiced frustration over the platform’s reduction in customization and configurability (Wired).

Within Microsoft 365, Copilot is gaining traction as a powerful workplace assistant. Businesses appreciate features like graph-based chat in Excel, multilingual live analysis in Teams, and integration with custom AI agents for workflow automation (TechCrunch). However, pricing concerns have been raised, especially for companies operating at scale under the pay-as-you-go model.

Overall, enterprise sentiment is increasingly positive as Copilot becomes embedded into daily productivity software, but individual power users are beginning to look elsewhere for deeper AI control—often favoring alternatives like ChatGPT.

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Public sentiment in 2025 reveals a nuanced picture: users continue to admire the growing capabilities of AI chatbots, but they are also more vocal about unmet expectations.