OpenAI’s ChatGPT had an early start in the AI chatbot race, which cemented its dominant position that it’s held for years. However, that is now eroding. For the first time ever, ChatGPT now has less than 50% of the AI chatbot pie, as its competitors have made massive strides lately.
By May, ChatGPT’s market share was down to 46.4%, followed most closely by Gemini (27.7%) and Claude (10.3%). 46% market share is still impressive, but ChatGPT started at 100% all those years ago, let’s not forget.
On the other hand, more and more people are using AI chatbots, with ChatGPT going over the 1 billion monthly active user mark and reaching 1.1 billion earlier this month. It’s not just the first AI chatbot to reach that number, it’s the fastest growing online app/service ever. Gemini has 662 million monthly active users now, and Claude has 245 million.
Interestingly, people are more and more likely to switch between bots. Spending on these apps increased to $4.2 billion in the first half of this year, up from just $1.83 billion in the first half of last year. Claude has the most paid users out of its total, at 13%, which is undoubtedly helped by its very aggressive usage limits on the free plan.
On the other hand, ChatGPT keeps ramping up ads, and by May an average of 17% of its daily users were being served ads. It’s also using referral links to Target, Walmart, and Costco.