OK… well explain this, if it can’t count. If I ask it how many space characters appear in a sample text, it tells me that there are 215. Word processing app tells me that there are 214 words. So that’s how you get it to count words. Count spaces instead. (If I ask ChatGPT how many words are in that text, it says 325 - wrong!).
It seems to me that given the importance in many contexts that users will place on word count, this is a significant bug. Or “functional limitation” if you don’t like the word “bug”.
[Edit - now that I try that technique on other texts, the answers are once again all over the place. I think I give up…]