Two related studies use Gaia DR3 (including the Focused Product Release) to evaluate how well symbiotic binaries are represented and to search for additional systems. Symbiotic stars are long-period binaries consisting of an evolved giant and a hot compact companion, often producing complex spectra and strong emission features. In the first work, the authors cross-match confirmed symbiotic stars with Gaia DR3 and FPR data and find that astrometric information is generally reliable for locating symbiotics in the color–magnitude diagram. They report that RUWE is not a dependable indicator of binarity for this class, and that most systems show variability in Gaia photometry. Mean and epoch radial velocities and inferred orbital solutions are broadly consistent with published literature; tentative orbital solutions are provided for two sources. However, derived effective temperatures and metallicities are often unreliable due to contamination from nebular continuum and strong emission lines, while Hα emission is detected in nearly all symbiotics and serves as a robust diagnostic. In the second work, the authors test Gaia DR3’s general variability classification for symbiotic candidates, train a Random Forest classifier to estimate contamination, and conclude that most candidates overlap with pulsating red giants. Follow-up spectroscopy confirms three new symbiotic stars, with eight strong remaining candidates among the newly proposed objects.