Maybe you gave up before Google released Gemini Advanced? This viewpoint seemed more accurate before it was related, but Gemini Advanced is the third best LLM as rated here [1]. In fact, had second place until a few days ago when Claude 3.5 came out.
Isn't Gemini Advanced Gemini Pro attached to some sort of an internet search program? If it has that advantage over other models it isn't a sign of AI chops.
[1]: https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboar...