Acrobat AI vs PDFgear Chatbot: Which is a Better AI?

Earlier this year, Adobe released an AI-powered assistant feature called Acrobat AI in their renowned PDF editor Adobe Acrobat Pro in a bid to entice subscriptions.

To help PDF users evaluate this upgrade, we used the popular AI PDF summarizer PDFgear Chatbot for comparison in various criteria including processing speed, answer accuracy, limitations, etc., so you can have a better understanding of Adobe Acrobat AI.

To test their performances in summarizing and analyzing different PDF documents, we randomly picked 3 informative Wikipedia pages and downloaded them as PDF files.

Overall Comparison

Criteria	Acrobat AI	PDFgear Chatbot
Limitations	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Initial Analyzing Speed	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Accuracy	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reliability	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Misc	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price	⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Processing Speed

To evaluate the processing speed of PDF analyzation of each tool, we’ll mainly focus on the time spent from the end user accessing the AI assistant feature, to the time when the interactable analysis is completed and the overview appears.

Acrobat AI

• Depending on the length of the PDF document, Acrobat AI generally takes 10 to 38 seconds to process a PDF document with 10 to 60 pages.
• In our testing, Acrobat AI takes around 10 seconds to process a 10-page PDF file and around 38 seconds for a PDF document with 50 to 60 pages. The time required for the initialization process is correlated to the length of the PDF document.
• Previously analyzed files will be analyzed once again, taking the same time as the first time.

PDFgear Chatbot

• PDFgear takes around 9 seconds to process PDF files, regardless of the length of the document.
• The analysis overview of previously analyzed files can be accessed instantly, without needing processing all over again.

Verdict

In terms of PDF processing speed, PDFgear is significantly faster than Adobe Acrobat AI.

Accuracy of the Answers

Accuracy Test	Pros	Cons
PDFgear Chatbot	Faster and more concise answers. Straight to the point, additional information when necessary. Better logic.	Poorer readability. Answers in paragraphs.
Acrobat AI	Answers in bullet lists with better readability.	Worse context. Contradictory, redundant information.

Test File 1: Computer science – Wikipedia

Q1: Summarize this PDF

• Two AI tools both provide correct answers but in different styles.
• PDFgear offers more concise answers, with key information covered. It summarizes the entire PDF into two parts, one is about computer science (basic fields, history, and related disciplines), and the other one is historical figures.

• Acrobat AI’s answer is much longer, with seven paragraphs and a total of nearly 500 words.
• However, most of the key information has already been covered in the first three paragraphs. The following content is not a summary, but more like an outline, explaining each keyword again.
• It talked about the theoretical disciplines, iconic historical figures, research fields, research results, and strong correlation with mathematics included in computer science.

Verdict: While Acrobat AI provides more detailed summaries of the content, PDFgear is a qualified AI PDF summarizer regarding the accuracy of answers.

Q2: What is the significance of the Turing Machine in Computer Science?

• Both answers are correct, but the styles are distinctively different.
• PDFgear’s answer is still more concise. This answer is more useful when a summary is needed without detailed technical details.

• Acrobat AI’s answers are more informative, and the detailed content may be more valuable to readers with professional backgrounds.
• Subsequently, I continued to ask PDFgear for a more detailed follow-up to this question and Acrobat for a more concise answer. In that case, Acrobat AI made a mistake and it shortened the first question (that is, summarize this PDF).

Verdict: Acrobat AI falls short in handling continuous conversations, but this problem did not occur again in later tests, so it could be a sporadic issue. However, PDFgear did not have that problem during the entire test.

Q3: What are some notable inventions or advancements that were significant in the development of Computer Science?

In terms of the answer’s format, they both support answers in a bullet list, but Acrobat AI sports more intuitive answers with better readability.

In terms of content quality, Acrobat AI delivers more comprehensive summaries, with 5 more key points than PDFgear, which are indeed information mentioned in the document.

However, Acrobat AI’s ampleness of key points could be the result of extended answers.

Test File 2: Industrial Revolution – Wikipedia

Q1: When and where did the first Industrial Revolution begin?

Acrobat AI and PDFgear both provide the technically correct answer, while PDFgear turned out to be more precise by providing the specific year information.

Q2: Can you describe how the Industrial Revolution led to urbanization?

Both answers are correct. PDFgear’s answer is still the more concise one, while Acrobat AI’s answer is longer but with a clearer layout.

They both mentioned relevant key points, but PDFgear prevails with more logical answers, explaining the question from the cause to the effect.

On the other hand, Acrobat AI’s plain-vanilla bullet-list answers that lack logical explanation will make users harder to understand the answer.

Q3: Who were some key figures or contributors to the Industrial Revolution?

Both the answers are correct. PDFgear only picked a handful of characters to talk about, while Acrobat AI almost covered all the characters mentioned in the article.

In addition, Acrobat AI’s answers layout does look better.

When I asked them again to list important figures and corresponding inventions, PDFgear merely adjusted the layout of the previous answer.

Acrobat AI removed 3 characters it “deemed less critical” and still retained 12.

It seems that PDFgear is more readable, but Acrobat AI’s answers provide more information.

PDFgear has a little less content and is missing some important figures for the Industrial Revolution, while Acrobat has a little too much content, and those with mere achievements are also listed.

Verdict: I personally think that this round is a tie. The accuracy of answers to Q3 varies from person to person.

Test File 3: Microsoft – Wikipedia

Q1: Who were the founders of Microsoft and when was it established?

All correct and no-nonsense. PDFgear has an obvious advantage in answering speed, taking only about 3 seconds, while Acrobat AI approaches 10 seconds.

Q2: Can you list some acquisitions made by Microsoft and how they influenced Microsoft’s portfolio?

Acrobat AI is better in terms of comprehensiveness and readability of answers.

Since PDFgear doesn’t read the entire PDF (resulting in the faster answering speed), the answers here aren’t as comprehensive as Acrobat.

Q3: What is the significance of Microsoft Office in the company’s growth and what are its key components?

The answers are both correct, but Acrobat AI has a less detailed answer this time.

In terms of the accuracy of answers, PDFgear is better. In addition to answering questions, it also gave a brief introduction to the functions of several commonly used components in Office, while Acrobat AI failed to.

Verdict: Overall, although the accuracy of Acrobat AI’s answers is pretty good, it is very likely that there will be some redundant information that is not relevant to the question. The thinking logic is not very strict.

PDFgear Chatbot’s answers are in most cases direct answers, followed by a brief explanation of the content if necessary, and there is less chance of irrelevant redundant information.

According to the answers to Q3, Microsoft Office was released in 1989. I further expanded on that year information and asked questions, and Acrobat AI gave contradictory answers.

The first answer was that Office was first released in 1989, the second answer was 1990, and the third answer changed it to 1989.

There’s no information source provided, and the accuracy of the answers is not very stable.

PDFgear’s answers remain consistent in 1989.

Reliability of the Answer

Acrobat AI is the winner here.

While PDFgear has accurate answers, its unreliable information sources are unfriendly to users.

On the other hand, Acrobat AI will mark the source in the answer, precisely leading you to a sentence or even a phrase.

However, the source accuracy of Acrobat AI is not very high (around 50%). For example, source 2 in the screenshot is actually completely irrelevant information. 

Although PDFgear will provide sources, the accuracy rate is not as high as Acrobat AI (around 30%).

In addition, since PDFgear can not point precisely to sentences or phrases, it is actually difficult to find the exact source when jumping to a certain page. 

Miscellaneous

PDFgear Chatbot and Acrobat AI functions in summarizing and analyzing PDF documents are similar.

Additionally, PDFgear Chatbot also allows for PDF editor software interaction such as “compressing the PDF”, “zooming in PDF view”, “displaying PDF in slide mode”, etc.

Acrobat AI is not subject to PDF conversions, yet it’s worth mentioning that the 1-click copy button for answers is extremely useful.

In that case, PDFgear Chatbot wins at providing extensive features.

File Size Limitations

Limitations	Acrobat AI	PDFgear Chatbot
Languages	English only	✅50+ languages
Page limit	120 pages top	✅No limit
File size limit	25MB top	✅No limit
Content Analyzing	Processes texts only	✅Embedding all texts, forms, and images with OCR enabled
Misc	The PDF shouldn’t be scanned or represented as an image. Keep your questions under 500 characters. Set the language of the Acrobat or Acrobat Reader app to English. Enable new Acrobat or Acrobat Reader.	Answers only get preciser as with progressive questioning. No limit on the program language setting.

The Bottom Line

In conclusion, our comparison of Adobe Acrobat AI and PDFgear Chatbot has shown that both tools offer valuable features for summarizing and analyzing PDF documents.

While Acrobat AI provides more detailed summaries and better readability, PDFgear Chatbot delivers faster and more concise answers with better logic.

Furthermore, PDFgear Chatbot outperforms Acrobat AI in terms of processing speed and offers additional features such as PDF editor software interaction.

Both tools have their strengths and weaknesses, and the choice between them depends on the user’s specific needs and preferences.