Gemini 3 vs. Claude Opus 4.5 vs. GPT-5.1 Codex: Which AI model is the best designer?

[music] Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claireo,

product leader and AI obsessive here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today I have a really fun mini episode where I'm going to answer the question on everyone's mind.

Which of these new models is actually the best designer? I'm going to take a page on my site that I don't think is particularly welldesigned and have

Gemini [music] 3, Opus45, and Codeex 51 duke it out and see which one can redesign my page better. One shot. Let's

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If you've been paying attention the last couple of weeks, it seems like every single model provider has released a brand new coding model. And what I heard the most from people is sure they're

fast and sure they're great and sure they're beating benchmarks, but they are all really good at design. If you've

been on X or social media, you've probably seen these beautifully designed landing pages, apps, and user experience components generated using Gemini 3 or

Opus 45 or even Codeex 5.1. And I

thought, let's put these side by side and actually see which one's better at redesigning an existing page. I think

it's easy to oneshot something and make it look beautiful, especially if you're a great prompter and know exactly what to say as a designer, but if you have an existing site and you want to make it

better, who's your trusted design engineer? Which of these models is

engineer? Which of these models is really going to do the trick? And I'm

going to show you what I think today in a couple minutes on which of these models is the better designer or redesigner of a page that I don't think is really great. So, this is the chat

PRD blog. It is not very good. I don't

PRD blog. It is not very good. I don't

think this is a very beautiful site.

It's not my favorite. I think it could be a lot better. And it could be a lot better from a functional perspective, but it can also be a lot better from a design perspective. And you know, if I

design perspective. And you know, if I had a team, which I have a little small one, but if I had a team that was not AI, I might send this to designer and say, "Hey, we just launched this um

early on. It's not great. Can you

early on. It's not great. Can you

redesign it?" And so I wanted to test that flow with some of the new models that have come out that have said that they are better designers than previous

versions. And so I fired up cursor and I

versions. And so I fired up cursor and I did a model by model comparison of redesigns. And I used the exact same

redesigns. And I used the exact same prompt, exact same input code, and we're just going to see which one we think is the better designer. So I'm going to

show you my prompt here in cursor.

It was pretty straightforward. It was

this redesign the blog page. So I just showed it the directory of where our blog page is to improve both the visual appeal and user experience. So sort of both like will it look nicer and will it

be functionally a little easier to use and then I added a functional component to it which was add best practices for SEO and navigation. And then I did that

for three different models. I did it for Gemini 3 Pro. I did it for Opus45 for anthropic and I did it from GPT51 codecs. These are all recently released

codecs. These are all recently released models that have been said to be their bestin-class models from OpenAI, from Anthropic, and from Google. And so we're going to see exactly what it did. And I

started with Gemini 3 Pro. The reason

why I started with Gemini 3 Pro is I've heard over and over and over again what a great designer Gemini 3 Pro is. And I

really wanted to see what it did. And so

you can see here it thought quite a bit um about visual design, user experience, SEO, navigation. It looked at the code

SEO, navigation. It looked at the code and it start started executing. So it

started writing some code and we're going to switch over and see exactly what it generated. So it generated this.

This was the before if you recall. Very,

very boring, not very good. And in the after, it generated a nice hero image of the most recent blog post. So, there's

now this like highlighted blog post at the top and then these cards at the bottom. And a couple improvements I see

bottom. And a couple improvements I see here. There's some tagging here. There's

here. There's some tagging here. There's

some date of releases. There's this nice hover effect that zooms in on our featured images when you zoom in.

Haven't done anything regarding pageionation, which is a current functionality that doesn't really take into account whether or not we have featured images and making that look

good. So, there's some things there that

good. So, there's some things there that could be improved, but I think overall it's pretty good. One thing that I noticed that it did that I did not love is that there's this tag at the very top

of the page, and it's just a little too tight with the rest of the navigation.

So, one of my reflections here is, you know, it doesn't have like the full visual context of the page, but it did a

pretty nice job and it was very fast.

But I have to say, despite Gemini 3's reputation for being the best designer, it was actually not my favorite. So we I

ran the exact same query in cursor with Opus 45. So if you look up here,

Opus 45. So if you look up here, redesigned the blog to improve both the visual appeal and UX and add best practices for SEO and navigation. Now,

the difference that I thought was really interesting when using Gemini 3 versus Opus 45 is Opus45 actually triggered um

a to-do list inside cursor. So, it did a tool call to to create a to-do list and it gave a stepbystep flow it was going to follow. So, Gemini 3 sort of did that

to follow. So, Gemini 3 sort of did that chain of thought um reasoning and then just you'll load code. Opus 45 created

four to-dos. So the to-dos were redesign

four to-dos. So the to-dos were redesign the blog listing page, improve the blog layout, enhance the post display and add comprehensive SEO structure data,

canonical URLs and metatags. And so it was very precise step by step on what it was going to do in terms of implementing. And so I think the

implementing. And so I think the planning capabilities of Opus 45 are certainly better. I think Anthropic has

certainly better. I think Anthropic has really different differentiated themselves as experts in coding models.

You know, if I wanted to get the best outcome here, I probably should have done this in Claude code because I think there's some optimizations they've done there recently as well. But I thought it

was really interesting that the output of a planned implementation was much better than the output of a straight shot oneshot implementation. And so you

can see it went step by step and actually checked off those changes and then provided me a a summary of changes.

And I'm going to switch and show you exactly what that looked like cuz I was actually impressed by by the design. So,

this is what we got from Opus45, which I think, spoiler alert, from all the models was the most beautifully designed

blog page that I got and also honestly the most functional from an SEO perspective. And so, what you can see

perspective. And so, what you can see that Opus45 did here is it pulled some images. We have a repository of

images. We have a repository of beautiful background images and featured images that we use throughout the chat pd website. It actually pulled and

pd website. It actually pulled and looked for assets that it could bring in that would look nice. These rings are some um design elements that we use commonly. And so it pulled in some

commonly. And so it pulled in some interesting assets. If you recall,

interesting assets. If you recall, Gemini 3 just had a gradient background.

Opus 45 actually added some imagery in the background. very similar concept in

the background. very similar concept in terms of the layout. So you see again a featured article that is the most recent

blog post. Again, three column cards

blog post. Again, three column cards with the zoomin trick. So I guess people like it. But if you look at this, a

like it. But if you look at this, a couple nice design tweaks that Opus45 added. When you hover, not only does the

added. When you hover, not only does the image zoom in, but it gives you this nice little call to action here, this little arrow. I think it is so cute.

little arrow. I think it is so cute.

Just does that nice little touch hover treatment on the um anchor link for the blog post. Again, tags are in. And then

blog post. Again, tags are in. And then

it did a little bit more on the SEO side. And I will wrap back around to the

side. And I will wrap back around to the SEO changes that each of them made. But

if you see here, not only do you have the author, which is me, Clarvo, you have the date, which we also saw in the Gemini 3 option, but it also has an estimated time reading and a link. And

so I just think the quality of the design here went probably 20 or 30% further than the Gemini 3 model went.

And it's those nice edge touches that I feel like AI can add into any design that just makes it so much nicer to work

with. And I was really impressed with

with. And I was really impressed with Opus 45 in terms of the quality of the detail orientation. Now let's go down.

detail orientation. Now let's go down.

You know, one of the things that it did is it handled no images a little smarter than Gemini 3 did. So, if you recall, Gemini 3 kind of collapsed these cards

here, did not put placeholder images in.

Here with Opus45, it saw that we were missing images for some of our blog posts and put a little placeholder with a nice little book icon here, which I think is lovely. It makes these cards

just look a lot nicer and is really welld designigned.

So overall, I think that Opus45 did an excellent job out of the box of redesigning a page and not only redesigning the page, but really thinking about the functional components

of it. And I think a lot of that goes to

of it. And I think a lot of that goes to its planning mode and its ability to call tools and then do some of these implementations step by step.

Now, let's get to the last model that I tested, which was codeex 51 Pro. So,

again, same prompt here. Redesign the

blog to improve the visual appeal and UX and add best practices from SEO. Edit

GPT51 codecs, um, the leading coding model from Open AI. Again, codec codecs like

Opus 45 thought and generated to-dos.

The to-dos were a little less granular than the one from Opus. So, if you look at Opus, the to-dos were redesign the blog listing page with specifics about

how I was going to redesign, improve the blog layout, enhance a specific component, and then add SEO. The plans

for 51 codecs were a little bit more general. They were investigate current

general. They were investigate current layout, redesign, apply SEO. So I think the planning was just not as thoughtful from a design perspective as the

planning was from Opus 45. And then if we actually look at the design, oh, OpenAI, you know, I love you. Some of my favorite models, but it did not do well

on this redesign. And so you can see a couple things that it didn't do well right out the gate. one, it gave me AI

slop purple gradient. Like, we do not need any more purple to blue gradients in a AI designs. We need to get them out of here. And so, just the fact that we

of here. And so, just the fact that we got AI purple is an immediate disappointment. The other thing, and

disappointment. The other thing, and this may be a me problem, but I think we have a white um word mark and a better logo to use here. And you can tell here

just the image it selected is not nice on top of a colored background. Now I do think that the headline and copy from the um from the blog is really nice

stories, playbooks and experiments from the team. Um so it gives a little bit

the team. Um so it gives a little bit more context. So this was the model that

more context. So this was the model that did the best copywriting perhaps but overall the design was not very good.

And then again it did a featured post here. This is the image from our most

here. This is the image from our most recent blog post, but there's no context. There's no call to action. It

context. There's no call to action. It

doesn't link to anywhere. And so, I'm just really unsure what it was expecting users to experience. Now, it's repeated here. Um, the featured blog. So, again,

here. Um, the featured blog. So, again,

I think these I think these models really like I guess there aren't that many fancy things in blog design and that you all have to have a featured image and then a three row um layout for your blog post. So, it did do the

featured image here, but the problem is it added a bunch of these links that don't really I don't understand how they work. They only do the featured image in

work. They only do the featured image in each of these categories. The jumping's

kind of weird. And then if you look at it at browse the library, it doesn't even show the blog posts that

exist in our overall um library. And so

it's both not pretty, it's purple, and it doesn't work. And so

I was really surprised cuz I've had pretty good experience with um GPT5 and 51 in functional sort of backend work, but the front end work, it just really

struggled. And I will tell you, this is

struggled. And I will tell you, this is not a complicated app. This is a basic, you know, blog layout with a basic CMS on the background. It is nothing that is

technically complicated. And so what I

technically complicated. And so what I would say from a GPT codeex 51 perspective is it's not going to be the designer on your team. It has another

role to play on your team. And I have found plenty of places for this model to be really really useful. But design is

not one of them. And so I would say just looking back Opus 45 absolutely my favorite from a front-end design

perspective. Gemini 3 very serviceable

perspective. Gemini 3 very serviceable could probably benefit from some planning and implementation and then codeex 5.1 is just not your front-end girl. So we got to get something else in

girl. So we got to get something else in the front end. And what I like about testing these models on a specific use case like this where it's repeated is you can start to understand which model

goes at what part of your workflow. I'm

a real believer in model switching. I

know everybody has their personal preferences, but I think there are great models for writing. I think there are great models for design. I think there are great models for image genen. I

think there's great models for planning and strategic thought. And I think there's great models for back-end coding. And not all of these models are

coding. And not all of these models are created equal. They're all exceptional.

created equal. They're all exceptional.

I mean, think about the work that they can do on behalf of teams. But they're not all the same. And I think as you test them out, looking at similar use cases over models and making a decision

about where you're going to place a model on a team is a really important skill to have as you're developing your AI fluency as a designer, as a product manager, and as an engineer. Now, I want

to go through the functional side of things before we wrap up this little mini app, which is going to be a true mini app hopefully under 20 minutes, which is summarizing the changes you

made. So, I asked each of the models to

made. So, I asked each of the models to summarize the changes they made into in terms of design changes, SEO changes, and just what did it do? And so, you

know, I like this as a workflow as you're working with coding agents, especially if you're if you're running a lot of them and you're not paying attention to them, asking it to summarize the changes it made so you can

compare them are really useful. And so

if you look at Gemini 3, it made a new hero section, which we know. It made

feature post layout, which we know.

Glassmorphism card. Thank you. Thank

you, Apple, for giving us glassorphism.

I think we could live without it, but it's at least a standard likable design style. So, it has scaling images,

style. So, it has scaling images, deepening shadows, improved typography, related articles, and visual breadcrumbs. Now, let's look at this

breadcrumbs. Now, let's look at this because one of the things I did not check is if these models actually changed how the blog post themselves showed up. So, let's click into that and

showed up. So, let's click into that and see if there were layout changes that were made to the actual blog posts. And

there were. Okay. So, Gemini 3 did make some changes to the actual blog posts and it said it added related articles.

Okay. So that's a little bonus is it went beyond just the the blog homepage and it added some SEO functionality into the blog post itself. Now let's read the

rest of the changes from an SEO perspective. Good JSON LD great SEO schema that we definitely want breadcrumbs which we definitely want

semantic HTML which is really helpful especially in blog and then related articles and metadata. So, lots of very helpful, I think, highquality SEO changes to my blog post from Gemini 3

Pro. So, I'm going to give it a little

Pro. So, I'm going to give it a little bit more credit in that it went a little further than I initially analyzed. Um,

and actually went to the blog pages itself. But, let's check that against my

itself. But, let's check that against my favorite, which was Opus 45. So, I'm

going to look at Opus 45. What changes

did it make? Now, see, these changes are extensive. So again, I think that

extensive. So again, I think that planning mode really allowed it to make very specific changes across a variety of components. So it made future post

of components. So it made future post and three column card grid which we know the little arrow slide in that I noted, reading time badges, category pills,

breadcrumbs which we like, and graceful empty state. So these are all things

empty state. So these are all things that I identified when I was visually scanning the design that I thought was really nice. Um the blog layout had this

really nice. Um the blog layout had this nice rings pattern improving spacing and then the post display um has more information. So let's

actually see what it did on the posts if anything. So let's click through.

anything. So let's click through.

So it made again very similar changes to what we saw in Gemini 3. So again like don't redesign uh everything. If you are doing something like a blog, you're going to get best practices. So, it

brought in that metadata in terms of author, date, and reading time. Let's

see if it added those anchor links. It

did not add um any related links. So, it

maybe didn't do as great of a job on the SEO on the individual article pages, but it did do a really nice job redesigning the call to action at the bottom of our

blog post, which is something that I don't think Gemini did. So, it added I'm sorry to say it is again AI purple slop.

So, we got to say no more purple.

Especially chat purity is so pink. It

should know it. It should see pink everywhere in my repo. It should do this. But other than the purple, I think

this. But other than the purple, I think this is a really nice call to action for a newsletter subscribe. There's a subtle gradient in here. There's a drop shadow.

This little um kind of uh avatar call out next to how many product managers are subscribed. Actually, there's like

are subscribed. Actually, there's like 90,000 product managers subscribed, so we got to update the content there. I

think this is a really nice little component. And this is another thing

component. And this is another thing I've noticed about these new coding models is we're all getting wowed by these beautiful page designs and app designs. What is really impressive is

designs. What is really impressive is you give it like a small little component, a little widget, and have it redesign, it looks so much nicer.

So that's what it did from a design perspective. Let's see from an SEO

perspective. Let's see from an SEO perspective. So, metadata again, open

perspective. So, metadata again, open graph, um, structured data. Let's see if it did JSON LD. It didn't specifically call out JSON LD. So, I'm going to have to check to see if it did that. That's

one important part of our SEO road map at Chatard we've been working on. So, I

was surprised not to see it. But again,

maybe you put Opus 45 in the designer mode and you put some of these other models in your like SEO engineer mode and then another model in your sort of like backend engineering mode. So maybe

we just have figured out where each of these models need to live. Now let's do our last one and look at codeex 51.

What were the changes it made? Now this

is the shortest uh shortest summary. And

again, this is the one that did the worst job at this. I will say also GPT5 models love a bullet point. If you

see a bullet point, this is a five or 51 response here. And so I asked it to

response here. And so I asked it to categorize the changes you made. Again,

use the exact same prompt. It gave me five bullet points. Very lazy. Um, so

hero panel, category chips, featured article layout, and then SEO changes, did metadata, and embedded a schema.org.

So they it did the JSON LD block. Um, so

that's good. So again, we weren't really impressed with the codeex 5 GPT 51 codeex model on design and actually not that impressed on the details in terms

of user experience and SEO. So I think maybe this this guy belongs in the back end. I probably could have prompted it

end. I probably could have prompted it better, but again, the point of this mini episode is to show if we have a basic prompt. The same way I would speak

basic prompt. The same way I would speak to a colleague that I don't have time to tell exactly how to make better, I'm hoping they can research and understand how to make a page better. I would just

say, "Hey, our blog is not good. We need

to prove the SEO. We need to prove the UX and it needs to be prettier. Can you

just take care of it?" um what it would do. And that's how I like to think about

do. And that's how I like to think about these models is how do they respond to these natural requests you would make in the day-to-day of your work and then

compare how they do on the outset. So to

recap for everyone, we did a we started with a existing layout. It was not pretty. It was not functional. It was

pretty. It was not functional. It was

not good. We gave a threeline prompt to redesign it for UX, visual appeal, and SEO. And then we compared three models.

SEO. And then we compared three models.

We compared Google's Gemini 3, Anthropics, Opus 45, and Open AI's GPD

5.1 codecs. And the winner was for sure

5.1 codecs. And the winner was for sure on the design side Anthropic's Opus45 model both from a design perspective as

well as a usability and SEO perspective and it went further than even my prompt requested. The hypothesis here is both

requested. The hypothesis here is both it is better trained on high-quality front-end design as well as its detailed planning allows it to do a much better

job on the details and implementation than these other models that do more shallow planning or no planning at all as we saw in the Gemini 3 case and so we

just got a better outcome. I love my new blog design. I am very excited about

blog design. I am very excited about this. If we just take a step back, it is

this. If we just take a step back, it is incredible that in less than 20 minutes, we were able to generate not one, not two, but three alternative designs for

an existing website. We were able to get massive upgrades on the functionality of it, especially some technical SEO stuff, and I was able to pick the one I like.

Imagine asking your teammate to design you three different options, give you three different plans for SEO, and then tell you which, you know, have to go back and forth on which one you like better. I think this is an awesome flow.

better. I think this is an awesome flow.

I loved it so much. I'm actually just going to go ahead and ship this today.

So, we'll put it in the show notes so you can see exactly what happened. And

that is my takedown of which of the new models from November 2025 is the best designer. And I think the winner is

designer. And I think the winner is Opus45. Thank you so much for joining

Opus45. Thank you so much for joining this mini episode of How I AI. I cannot

wait to share more tips and tricks and hands-on experience with AI and I will see you soon.

Thanks so much for watching. [music] If

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