ChatGPT’s market share declines, while both Gemini and Claude grow

Power relations on the market are changing

Although ChatGPT remains the leading player, with more than 1.1 billion monthly active users, its proportional market share is shrinking. According to data published by the analytics company Sensor Tower, in May 2026 ChatGPT held 46.4 percent of the market. At the same time, the competition is not sleeping, and the biggest step forward was made by Google’s Gemini, which rose to 27.7 percent of the market share, placing it in second place.

Significant growth was noted by Claude, the chatbot of the company Anthropic, which reached 10.3 percent of the market. Sensor Tower points out that Claude has experienced explosive growth, mostly thanks to a strong presence on the web, and its share among users in the United States has more than tripled. Other players such as Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek and Meta AI hold much smaller, single-digit shares for now.

The end of the “honeymoon” and the lack of loyalty

The data suggests that the initial phase of fascination with one tool, the so-called “honeymoon” with ChatGPT, is over. Users are becoming increasingly demanding and are more willing to explore alternatives, instead of remaining loyal to one specific chatbot. Brand loyalty is not yet strongly expressed in this sector, and users easily move to other platforms depending on new features of the model, integrations with other tools, prices, and even the business policy of the company.

A clear example of the impact of business decisions on user trust was the jump in the number of uninstalls of the ChatGPT application after OpenAI entered into a contract with the US Department of War. Although the number of uninstalls later returned to average levels, this event showed the sensitivity of users to ethical and political issues.

Ecosystem strength as a key advantage

One of the main reasons for the rapid growth of Google’s Gemini lies in its deep integration with the broad Google ecosystem. Connectivity with Android, search engine, Workspace tools, health apps and other services gives it a huge advantage as it offers users a seamless experience within a familiar environment. A similar strategy is used by other technology companies, such as Apple, which plans to integrate advanced artificial intelligence into its Siri assistant.

In the meantime, the entire market for generative artificial intelligence is booming. The time users spend on these apps has more than doubled in just one year, jumping from 17.2 billion hours in the first half of 2025 to nearly 36 billion hours in the first half of 2026. The AI ​​chatbot market is estimated at $11.78 billion in 2026, with significant further growth projected.