App tracker data shows that ChatGPT’s market share is declining as Google and its competitors close the gap

The market share of OpenAI’s ChatGPT apps fell from 69.1% in January 2025 to 45.3% in 2026, according to data from Mobile Intelligence Data. apptopia provider, It was first reported by Big tech. During the same period, Apptopia data shows that Google’s Gemini chatbot increased its market share from 14.7% to 25.2%. Elon Musk’s Grok has also been growing rapidly, reaching its highest market share to date at 15.2%, compared to 1.6% at the same time last year, according to the data.

It wasn’t just the market share of OpenAI applications that took a hit; Competitors have also made gains in terms of web traffic as well. according to Web traffic data from SimilarWebGemini’s main web landing page, Gemini.google.com, significantly narrowed the gap with ChatGPT.com in December 2025, with a traffic increase of 28.38%, while ChatGPT traffic decreased by 5.59%. preliminary Show data Gemini surpassed 2 billion monthly visits for the first time in January 2026, while ChatGPT has rebounded after two straight months of decline, although it remains below its October 2025 peak.

On Wednesday, during the fourth-quarter earnings call for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, CEO Sundar Pichai also announced that Gemini had surpassed 750 million monthly active users — up from 650 million from the previous quarter. While ChatGPT is still likely to retain the top spot with an estimated 810 million monthly active users It was reported in late 2025The gap is closing quickly.

During the call, CEO Sundar Pichai said the launch of Gemini 3, the company’s most advanced model, was a “positive driver” of growth. The launch was accompanied by the widespread success of Nano Banana Pro, Google’s AI image creator, which captured the public’s attention with its hyper-realistic creations. The competitive pressure on OpenAI has become so intense that CEO Sam Altman declared an eight-week “code red” in December, urging employees to refocus on core products.

While app and web traffic numbers reveal important trends in consumer adoption, they only tell part of the story when it comes to the broader AI market. Although some app users may be people who use robots for work tasks, either in authorized ways or as “shadow AI,” they may also use these apps for personal tasks. The data does not capture API usage, which is the preferred method for integrating AI tools across the enterprise.

On the business front, Anthropic has shown great momentum. according to Survey data From Menlo Ventures, a human investor, holds an artificial intelligence lab About a third of the enterprise marketcompared to 25% for OpenAI and about 20% for Google Gemini.

These trends paint a picture of an increasingly competitive AI landscape as OpenAI faces challenges on multiple fronts: losing consumer market share to Google’s Gemini, competing with Anthropic’s momentum, and taking on fast-growing competitors like Grok. If ChatGPT’s consumer market share continues to decline, it could complicate OpenAI’s potential IPO plans — especially if Anthropic, which is reportedly considering going public, manages to go public before it does.

Apptopia’s data also found that one in five AI users now use multiple apps, suggesting that users may find different tools useful for different tasks, opening up the possibility of a market where AI companies could carve out a niche. For example, while Cloud lags behind its competitors in total app users, it dominates in engagement. In January, the average time spent per user per day was the highest at 34.7 minutes, down only slightly from the similarly strong performance in December.

“ChatGPT built the category, but as viable alternatives expand, users are naturally diversifying their toolset,” said Tom Grant, VP of Research at Apptopia. “The market may end up looking like streaming, where a few major players own the market, but many players can create niches based on product differentiation rather than pure network effects.”