The AI chatbot race produced a milestone this month that almost nobody predicted two years ago: two products are now within striking distance of a billion users each. Google confirmed on its Q2 2026 earnings call that the Gemini app has reached 950 million monthly active users. OpenAI said ChatGPT crossed a billion monthly users in June. Those are numbers previously reserved for Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.
But across the AI chatbot field, the user counts and the usage data tell noticeably different stories, and the gap between them is the most interesting thing in the dataset.
AI chatbot users and market share: the numbers
Here is where the major assistants stand. Read the table with care — the figures are genuinely not comparable, and we have flagged why in the final column.
| AI chatbot | Reported users | Source of figure | Web-visit share (May 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | 900M weekly / 1B+ monthly | OpenAI, Feb & Jun 2026 | 46.4% |
| Gemini (Google) | 950M monthly | Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings | 27.7% |
| Claude (Anthropic) | ~245M monthly | Third-party estimate | 10.3% |
| DeepSeek | Not disclosed | — | ~4% |
| Grok (xAI) | ~117M monthly | SpaceX IPO filing, Mar 2026 | 2.4% |
| Perplexity | Not disclosed | — | 1.3% |
Web-visit share is measured by Similarweb and covers browser traffic only. It excludes app usage, API calls and assistants embedded in other products — which is precisely why it diverges from the headline user counts.
ChatGPT slipped below 50% for the first time
The symbolic moment of 2026 came in May, when ChatGPT’s share of AI chatbot web visits fell under half for the first time since the category existed, landing at roughly 46.4% by month end. It had been above 50% continuously for more than three years.
This is not collapse. The leading AI chatbot’s absolute traffic and user numbers kept growing. What changed is that the rest of the field grew faster, which is what a maturing market looks like.
Why Gemini’s 950 million needs an asterisk
Gemini’s user number is the one to treat most sceptically, and the reason is distribution rather than doubt about Google’s accounting.
Gemini is embedded across Android, Chrome, Search and Google Workspace. A user who taps a Gemini suggestion inside Gmail counts toward monthly actives. That is a legitimate measure of reach, but it is a different behaviour from opening a dedicated AI chatbot and working through a problem in it.
The web-visit data reflects this: Gemini has roughly as many reported monthly users as ChatGPT, but a little over half of ChatGPT’s browser share. Reach and intent are not the same metric, and Google is winning the first while OpenAI still leads the second.
Claude is the fastest riser in the field
Anthropic’s Claude posted the steepest growth curve of any major AI chatbot: roughly 855% year-over-year growth in web visits, and about 228% in a single quarter, reaching 952.6 million visits in May 2026 and around 10.3% global share.
Its US share is higher still, at roughly 13.4%, which points to where the growth is coming from — professional and developer usage in North America rather than mass consumer adoption. That is a narrower base than Gemini’s, but a considerably more monetisable one.
Grok, DeepSeek and the long tail
Grok’s numbers became unusually verifiable this year: SpaceX’s IPO filing disclosed roughly 117 million monthly active users for xAI’s assistant as of March 2026, more than triple its December 2025 figure. Its web-visit share sits at about 2.4%, with roughly 283 million monthly visits to grok.com.
The distribution story mirrors Google’s — Grok is embedded in X, so a large share of its usage never touches a standalone site. Its audience also skews sharply male and under 35.
DeepSeek holds around 4% globally, concentrated among Chinese users and cost-sensitive developers, while Perplexity sits at roughly 1.3% with a search-replacement positioning rather than a general assistant one.
What it means
Three takeaways for anyone tracking this market rather than just the headlines.
First, treat every AI chatbot user figure as a marketing number until you know its denominator. Weekly actives, monthly actives, registered accounts and embedded-surface touches are four different things, and companies disclose whichever flatters them.
Second, AI chatbot concentration is still extreme. ChatGPT and Gemini together account for roughly 74% of web visits, and about 86% by some measures. The long tail of smaller AI chatbot products is real but small. Compute economics favour incumbents, and the energy and data-centre build-out now reshaping Bitcoin mining is the clearest evidence of what that scale costs.
Third — and this is the part relevant to financial services — the assistant that wins on consumer reach is not necessarily the one that wins on enterprise integration. Claude’s disproportionate US and professional share, alongside Anthropic’s enterprise positioning, matters more for institutional adoption than raw user counts suggest. That is the same dynamic now playing out as agentic AI systems move into transactional workflows, where reliability and auditability outrank familiarity. Firms are already wiring AI chatbot and agent stacks into trading and operations on that basis.
For the UAE and wider Gulf, where AI adoption is state-backed and moving quickly — as the scale of events like the Global AI Show in Riyadh made clear — the practical question is not which AI chatbot has the most users. It is which vendors will sign data-residency and compliance terms that regional regulators accept.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI chatbot has the most users in 2026?
ChatGPT, on most measures. OpenAI reported 900 million weekly active users in February 2026 and said the app passed a billion monthly users in June. Google’s Gemini is close behind at 950 million monthly actives, but benefits from being embedded across Android, Chrome and Workspace.
Why do market share and user numbers disagree?
Because they measure different things. User counts are self-reported by the companies and include embedded surfaces. Web-visit share is measured independently by Similarweb but only captures browser traffic, missing apps and API usage entirely. Neither is complete on its own.
Sources: TechCrunch on Gemini approaching a billion users; TechCrunch on ChatGPT falling below 50% share. Market-share percentages are Similarweb web-visit data for May 2026 and exclude app and API usage.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. User figures are as reported by the companies or by third-party measurement firms and have not been independently audited.
