AI Chatbot Statistics (2026)

A data analysis of the chatbot market beyond ChatGPT: who is gaining share, how many people the challengers really reach, what people use chatbots for, and how far they trust the answers.

ChatGPT still leads every public measure of the AI chatbot market, but the size of its lead depends on the yardstick. It sends 80.48% of AI chatbot referrals to websites worldwide, per StatCounter (September 2026), yet holds only 52.7% of chatbot web visits, per Similarweb data reported by PPC Land (May 2026). Google Gemini is the clear number two, with 950 million monthly users. For our picks and verdicts, see the AI chatbots category.

Key takeaways

• 950 million people use the Gemini app each month, up from 450 million a year earlier, per Alphabet’s July 2026 earnings remarks
• ChatGPT’s share runs from 52.7% to 80.48%: 52.7% of chatbot web visits (Similarweb via PPC Land) versus 80.48% of chatbot referrals to websites (StatCounter)
• Gemini’s share of chatbot web visits rose from 8.9% to 27.3% in twelve months to May 2026 (Similarweb via PPC Land), and its referral share passed 10% on StatCounter
• Meta AI has more than a billion monthly actives and Microsoft’s Copilot family passed 150 million, per Meta and Microsoft earnings calls
• 49% of US adults now use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024, and 24% use them daily, per Pew Research Center
• The average US AI user now uses 3.0 general assistants, up from 2.2 a year earlier (Menlo Ventures)
• Only 20% of people trust news from AI chatbots, against 37% who trust most news overall (Reuters Institute)
• AI chatbots drove just 0.17% of the average website’s visitors in a 2025 study of 3,000 sites (Ahrefs)
• 55% of US AI users now pay for at least one AI product (Menlo Ventures)

What is the AI chatbot market share in 2026?

ChatGPT leads AI chatbot market share on every public tracker, but its lead depends on the method. StatCounter credits it with 80.48% of chatbot referrals to websites in September 2026, while Similarweb data put it at 52.7% of chatbot web visits in May 2026. Gemini ranks second on both.

1. ChatGPT sent 80.48% of all AI chatbot referrals to websites worldwide in September 2026, per StatCounter. This counts clicks from a chatbot answer to sites in StatCounter’s network, which logs over 3 billion page views a month across over 1 million websites (StatCounter).
2. Gemini ranked second at 10.91%, followed by Perplexity at 5.85%, Microsoft Copilot at 1.79%, Claude at 0.95%, and DeepSeek at 0.02% (StatCounter). In May 2026, StatCounter’s CEO called the 10% line Gemini’s next test (StatCounter). It has now passed it.
3. By visits, ChatGPT held 52.7% of worldwide generative AI web traffic in May 2026, down from 76.4% a year earlier, per Similarweb data reported by PPC Land. Gemini held 27.3%, Claude 8.9%, DeepSeek 4.0%, Grok 2.8%, Copilot 2.0%, and Perplexity 1.3%.
4. In the US, ChatGPT’s referral share is lower, at 75.17%, with Gemini at 13.26%, Copilot at 6.64%, Perplexity at 3.02%, and Claude at 1.81% (StatCounter US). Copilot’s US share is nearly four times its worldwide share.
5. Market share is regional: DeepSeek led China with 89.3% of chatbot referrals when StatCounter launched its tracker in June 2025 (StatCounter).

Sources: StatCounter worldwide and US referral share; Similarweb via PPC Land visit share; Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 US adults.

The gap between the columns is the story. Referral share rewards chatbots that send people to websites. Visit share rewards chatbots that people open. Claude is the clearest case: close to 9% of visits but under 1% of referrals worldwide. That fits its usage data, which skews toward coding rather than looking things up (see below).

Which AI chatbot is growing fastest?

Gemini is gaining the most share, and Claude is growing fastest from a small base. Per Similarweb data, Gemini rose from 8.9% to 27.3% of chatbot web visits between June 2025 and May 2026, while Claude rose from 1.6% to 8.9%. Perplexity and Copilot lost referral share on StatCounter.

6. Gemini’s share of chatbot web visits rose from 8.9% to 27.3% in twelve months (Similarweb via PPC Land). ChatGPT lost 23.7 points over the same window.
7. Gemini’s referral share climbed from 2.31% in April 2025 to 10.91% in September 2026 (StatCounter). It overtook Perplexity for second place in March 2026 at 8.65% (StatCounter).
8. Claude’s worldwide app monthly active users grew roughly 1,318% between June 2025 and May 2026, per Similarweb, the fastest proportional growth of any major platform it tracks.
9. Claude’s referral share more than doubled in a single month, from 1.37% in February 2026 to 2.91% in March (StatCounter), amid a widely reported wave of users switching from ChatGPT. It was back to 0.95% by September 2026 (StatCounter). Spikes do not always stick.
10. Perplexity’s referral share fell from a 12.07% peak in April 2025 to 5.85% in September 2026 (StatCounter). Its share of chatbot web visits slipped from 1.8% to 1.3% over the year to May 2026 (Similarweb via PPC Land).
11. Microsoft Copilot’s referral share dropped from a 5.18% peak in May 2025 to 1.79% in September 2026 (StatCounter). On Similarweb’s visit measure it barely moved, from 1.9% to 2.0% (PPC Land).
12. Grok and DeepSeek are stuck in single digits: Grok held 2.8% of chatbot visits in May 2026, the same as a year earlier, and DeepSeek slipped from 5.3% to 4.0% (Similarweb via PPC Land).

Sources: StatCounter monthly referral data (downloaded CSV); Similarweb via PPC Land worldwide visit share.

ChatGPT’s referral share barely moved in a year (81.12% to 80.48%) while its visit share fell sharply. People still click out from ChatGPT more than from any rival; they just spend more chatbot time elsewhere.

How many people use Gemini, Meta AI, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity?

Meta AI and Gemini report the largest audiences among ChatGPT’s rivals. Meta AI passed a billion monthly actives in October 2025 (Meta), and the Gemini app reached 950 million monthly users in July 2026 (Alphabet). Anthropic reports customers and revenue rather than monthly users.

13. The Gemini app had 950 million monthly active users in July 2026, with daily active users tripling in a year (Alphabet). Daily use is growing faster than monthly reach.
14. Gemini’s monthly users more than doubled in a year: Alphabet reported more than 450 million in July 2025 (Alphabet), over 650 million in October 2025 (Alphabet), and over 750 million in February 2026 (Alphabet).
15. Google’s AI Mode in Search passed 1 billion monthly active users (Alphabet, July 2026). Those chatbot-style answers live inside Search, so they never show up as visits to the Gemini app.
16. Meta AI reached “more than a billion monthly actives” by October 2025 (Meta Q3 2025 call). Meta’s next three earnings calls did not update the monthly figure. In July 2026 it said the number of people using Meta AI each day rose 60% after it rebuilt the assistant on its Muse Spark model (Meta Q2 2026 call).
17. Meta AI is available in over 200 markets, and engagement runs mainly through WhatsApp in markets such as India and Indonesia (Meta Q4 2025 call).
18. Microsoft’s family of Copilot apps passed 150 million monthly active users in October 2025, across work, coding, security, and consumer uses (Microsoft). Microsoft counts 900 million monthly users of AI features across all its products.
19. Daily users of the consumer Copilot app rose nearly 50% in one quarter (Microsoft, October 2025). Even so, Copilot sends just 1.79% of chatbot referrals worldwide (StatCounter).
20. Microsoft has over 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats as of July 2026, with net seat additions more than doubling quarter over quarter (Microsoft).
21. Anthropic serves over 300,000 business customers (Anthropic, September 2025), and eight of the Fortune 10 use Claude (Anthropic, February 2026). It has not published a monthly user count for Claude in its funding announcements.
22. Perplexity answered 780 million queries in May 2025, with growth above 20% month over month, CEO Aravind Srinivas said onstage (TechCrunch). It is the most recent company-stated usage figure we could retrieve.

Grok and DeepSeek had no official user count we could retrieve. Survey and traffic data for both appear in the tables above.

Treat the big numbers with care. Meta AI and Copilot count people who meet the assistant inside apps they already use. Pew’s survey shows the gap: only 14% of US adults say they use Meta AI and 17% say they use Copilot (Pew). Reach is not the same as choice.

What is the most popular AI chatbot in the US?

ChatGPT is the most popular AI chatbot in the US, used by 44% of adults in February 2026, per Pew Research Center. Gemini is second at 24%, followed by Copilot at 17%, Meta AI at 14%, Grok at 8%, and Claude at 6%. Among Americans who already use AI, Gemini has nearly closed the gap.

23. 44% of US adults use ChatGPT, up from 34% in 2025 and 18% in 2023 (Pew). For the full picture, see our ChatGPT statistics.
24. 24% of US adults use Gemini, 17% Copilot, 14% Meta AI, 8% Grok, 6% Claude, and 3% Character.ai (Pew). Perplexity and DeepSeek do not appear in Pew’s chart.
25. Among US AI users, Gemini’s reach jumped from 36% to 58% in a year, close to ChatGPT’s 60% (Menlo Ventures, July 2026). Menlo says ChatGPT’s lead shrank from nine points to two.
26. Claude’s reach among US AI users nearly tripled, from 7% to 20% (Menlo Ventures). Disclosure: Menlo Ventures marks Claude as one of its portfolio companies in the report.
27. The average US AI user now uses 3.0 general assistants, up from 2.2, and 96% used at least one general assistant this year (Menlo Ventures). Using several chatbots is now the norm.

How many people use AI chatbots?

About half of US adults (49%) use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024, per a February 2026 Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 adults. About a quarter (24%) use them daily. Worldwide, Menlo Ventures estimates consumer AI reached two billion users in 2026, roughly 24% of the global population.

28. 49% of US adults use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024 (Pew).
29. 24% of US adults use chatbots daily, including 12% several times a day and 4% almost constantly (Pew). Roughly one in eight American adults now opens a chatbot several times a day.
30. 66% of adults ages 18 to 29 use chatbots, versus 23% of those 65 and older (Pew). Use rose in every age group since 2024.
31. 64% of US teens ages 13 to 17 say they use chatbots (Pew, survey fielded in fall 2025), a higher share than parents believe.
32. 64% of US adults used AI in 2026, up from 61%, while daily use rose from 19% to 25% (Menlo Ventures, survey of 5,067 adults). Growth now comes from existing users going deeper, not from new users.
33. General AI assistants alone are used daily by 22% of US consumers, more than ride-sharing (6%) and food delivery (7%) combined (Menlo Ventures).
34. Consumer AI reached two billion users worldwide in 2026, up 11% from 1.8 billion (Menlo Ventures). It is a survey-based estimate, not a measured count.
35. Generative AI sites drew 9.5 billion average monthly web visits from 655 million unique visitors between June 2025 and May 2026 (Similarweb). Visits grew 70% and visitors 57%, so the same people are coming back more often.

Source: Pew Research Center, surveys of US adults; 2026 survey conducted Feb. 17-23, 2026. The 2024 question wording differed slightly.

What do people use AI chatbots for?

Searching for information is the top use of AI chatbots in the US, cited by 42% of adults, followed by work tasks at 38% of employed adults, per Pew Research Center. Personal uses are smaller but real: 10% use chatbots for emotional support or advice and 4% for companionship.

36. 42% of US adults use chatbots to search for information, and 38% of employed adults use them for work tasks (Pew).
37. 25% use chatbots for fun, 24% to create or edit images or video, 20% for medical advice, and 13% for news (Pew).
38. 10% of US adults use chatbots for emotional support or advice, and 4% for companionship (Pew).
39. 34% of Americans have used AI chatbots for at least one health or medical reason (Pew, August 2026). Of those users, 47% call the information extremely or very helpful.
40. More than 70% of ChatGPT messages are now non-work, up from 53%, per an NBER working paper analyzing ChatGPT conversations through July 2025. The market leader is mostly a personal tool.
41. Coding is the top use of Claude at 36% of usage, and “directive” conversations, where users hand Claude a whole task, rose from 27% to 39% (Anthropic Economic Index, September 2025). Claude skews toward work and delegation.
42. 57% of US teens have used chatbots to search for information and 54% for schoolwork help; 12% have sought emotional support (Pew).

The split matters for buyers. A generalist chatbot built for questions and a work-first assistant built for long tasks are different products. It also helps explain how Claude can hold close to 9% of chatbot visits while sending under 1% of chatbot referrals.

Do people trust AI chatbots?

Trust lags use. Only 20% of people in the Reuters Institute’s 2026 survey trust news from AI chatbots, below the 37% who trust most news overall, per the Digital News Report. Users are far kinder: 44% of chatbot users trust chatbot news, versus 17% of non-users.

43. 20% of people trust news from AI chatbots, while 37% trust most news most of the time (Reuters Institute).
44. 44% of AI chatbot users trust news from chatbots, versus 17% of non-users (Reuters Institute). Much of the distrust comes from people who have not tried the tools.
45. 70% of US AI holdouts distrust the information AI provides, up from 58% a year earlier (Menlo Ventures). The remaining non-users are hardening, not softening.
46. Accuracy (45%) and trustworthiness (40%) now rank ahead of ease of use (32%) in what US AI users value (Menlo Ventures). The selling point has shifted from convenience to reliability.
47. 30% of US adults say chatbots help their productivity, versus 5% who say chatbots hurt it (Pew). Few Americans see a downside for their own output.

Are AI chatbots replacing search and news?

Not yet. Only 10% of people use AI chatbots for news each week, and 1% call AI their main news source, per the Reuters Institute. For websites, chatbots drove just 0.17% of the average site’s visitors in a 2025 Ahrefs study of 3,000 sites.

48. Weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose from 7% to 10% across the markets in the Reuters Institute’s 2026 report (Reuters Institute). The youngest group uses chatbots for news at three times the rate of the oldest (17% versus 5%).
49. Only 1% say AI is their main source of news (Reuters Institute). In the UK, weekly chatbot news use is just 4%, the lowest of any market surveyed (Reuters Institute).
50. Just 4% of respondents always or often click through from AI to news sources, versus 19% from search and 17% from social media (Reuters Institute, 27 markets). The gap mostly reflects how few people use chatbots for news: among chatbot news users, 42% say they always or often click through (Reuters Institute).
51. 42% of chatbot news users ask follow-up questions, the most common news use (Reuters Institute).
52. 63% of websites received at least one visitor from an AI chatbot, but AI drove just 0.17% of the average site’s visitors (Ahrefs, February 2025). Three chatbots (ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini) sent 98% of that traffic, with Gemini at about 18%.
53. ChatGPT cited sources in roughly 6.8% of US prompts by May 2026, up from about 1.6% in June 2025 (Similarweb). Roughly 26% of ChatGPT responses now contain an ad, per the same source.

Google is folding the chatbot into Search itself: AI Mode’s billion monthly users (stat 15) rival the largest standalone chatbots. For marketers, that means AI visibility is now split across several assistants and Google’s own results, while the traffic those answers send back stays small.

How are AI chatbots used in customer service?

AI is now standard in customer service: 85% of service organizations use at least one form of AI, per Salesforce’s 2026 State of Service survey of 3,075 professionals (Salesforce). Customers are less sold. Only 44% of consumers trust AI to handle their service needs, per the Metrigy Consumer CX Index cited by Salesforce.

54. 85% of service organizations use at least one form of AI (Salesforce, May 2026).
55. 66% of customer service organizations now run agentic AI, up from 39% in 2025 (Salesforce). Our customer support software statistics cover deflection, resolution, and the vendor side in depth.
56. Only 44% of consumers trust AI to handle their customer service needs (Metrigy, via Salesforce). Companies are adopting faster than customers are warming up.
57. 83% of US AI non-users would rather deal with a person than talk to AI (Menlo Ventures). A support bot with no clear route to a human will frustrate exactly the customers who already distrust it.

Do people pay for AI chatbots?

More than half now do. 55% of US AI users pay for at least one AI product, per Menlo Ventures’ July 2026 survey, and global consumer AI spend reached an estimated $40 billion in 2026, more than triple the $12 billion of 2025. On the business side, Anthropic’s run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion in May 2026.

58. 55% of US AI users pay for at least one AI product, versus Menlo’s 2025 finding that just 3% of AI users paid (Menlo Ventures). Paying is now the majority behavior among US AI users.
59. Global consumer AI spend reached an estimated $40 billion in 2026, up from $12 billion (Menlo Ventures).
60. 82% of Claude users pay for AI (Menlo Ventures). Claude’s audience is smaller but unusually willing to pay.
61. Anthropic’s run-rate revenue rose from $14 billion in February 2026 to over $47 billion in May 2026 (Anthropic, Anthropic). In February, more than 500 customers were spending over $1 million a year with it.

What to do with this data

Two chatbots hold most of the attention, a third is growing fast, and users already juggle 3.0 assistants on average. That last number is the warning sign for teams. How to use the data when choosing tools:

• Pick by job, not by market share. ChatGPT is the generalist most people already know (ChatGPT). Claude skews to coding and delegated work, with coding at 36% of its usage (Claude). Perplexity is built for cited research (Perplexity).
• If your team lives in Google Workspace or Android, start with Gemini. It already reaches 950 million monthly users through Google’s own products (Gemini).
• Standardize on one paid assistant per team. Three assistants per person means three sets of prompts, three privacy reviews, and three bills. Our AI adoption statistics show why scaled use beats scattered trials.
• Verify anything that matters. Only 20% of people trust chatbot news, and accuracy is now the top thing AI users value. Build a check step into any workflow that publishes or decides.
• Optimize for more than one chatbot, but keep it in proportion. Gemini and Claude now hold over a third of chatbot visits, yet AI drove 0.17% of the average site’s visitors in Ahrefs’ 2025 study.
• Watch the agent shift. Chatbots are turning into agents that act on your behalf; see our agentic AI statistics.

Compare scored picks in our AI chatbots category, and read how tools8020 scores tools.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most popular AI chatbot in 2026?

ChatGPT. It sent 80.48% of AI chatbot referrals to websites in September 2026 (StatCounter) and is used by 44% of US adults (Pew). Google Gemini is second on both measures, with 10.91% of referrals and 24% of US adults. ChatGPT’s lead is shrinking fastest on visit-based measures.

What is Gemini’s market share?

It depends on the measure. Gemini held 27.3% of worldwide chatbot web visits in May 2026 (Similarweb via PPC Land) and 10.91% of chatbot referrals to websites in September 2026 (StatCounter). Both figures were under 9% a year earlier. Gemini overtook Perplexity for second place in referrals in March 2026.

How many people use Gemini?

The Gemini app had 950 million monthly active users in July 2026, with daily active users tripling over the previous year, per Alphabet. That is up from more than 450 million in July 2025. Separately, Google’s AI Mode in Search passed 1 billion monthly users.

How many people use Claude?

Anthropic does not publish a monthly user count for Claude. It reports over 300,000 business customers (Anthropic). Third-party data shows Claude at 8.9% of chatbot web visits in May 2026 (Similarweb via PPC Land) and used by 6% of US adults (Pew).

How many people use Perplexity?

Perplexity’s CEO said it answered 780 million queries in May 2025 (TechCrunch). We found no newer official figure. It held 5.85% of chatbot referrals to websites in September 2026, down from a 12.07% peak (StatCounter), and 1.3% of chatbot web visits in May 2026 (Similarweb via PPC Land).

What percentage of Americans use AI chatbots?

49% of US adults used AI chatbots in February 2026, up from 33% in 2024, and 24% use them daily, per Pew Research Center. Use is highest among adults ages 18 to 29, at 66%, and lowest among those 65 and older, at 23%.

Do people trust AI chatbots?

Mostly not for news. Only 20% of people trust news from AI chatbots, versus 37% for news overall, though 44% of chatbot users trust it (Reuters Institute). In the US, 70% of AI non-users distrust AI-provided information, and accuracy now tops what AI users value (Menlo Ventures).

How much traffic do AI chatbots send to websites?

Very little so far. In a 2025 study of 3,000 sites, AI chatbots drove 0.17% of the average site’s visitors, though 63% of sites got at least one AI visit (Ahrefs). ChatGPT sends the most, with 80.48% of chatbot referrals worldwide (StatCounter).

How we compiled these statistics

We drew on 14 publishers and 31 source pages: company earnings calls and announcements (Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Anthropic), independent trackers (StatCounter, Similarweb), and surveys (Pew Research Center, Reuters Institute, Menlo Ventures, Salesforce). Every figure was retrieved from the publisher’s page in October 2026, and figures we could not trace to a retrievable page were omitted. Where trackers disagree, as they do on market share, we show both and explain the method behind each.

Sources

• Statcounter: AI Chatbot Market Share Worldwide (September 2026)
• Statcounter: AI Chatbot Market Share in the United States (September 2026)
• Statcounter: ChatGPT falls to all-time low as AI chatbot referral market continues to fragment (2026)
• Statcounter: Google Gemini overtakes Perplexity to become second largest source of AI chatbot referrals (2026)
• Statcounter: New Statcounter AI data finds ChatGPT sends 79.8% of all chatbot referrals to websites (2025)
• PPC Land: ChatGPT drops to 52.7% as Claude triples its AI traffic share, citing Similarweb (2026)
• Similarweb: AI Search Stats 2026: Market Share, Referral, and Citation Data (2026)
• Alphabet: Q2 2026 earnings call, remarks from our CEO (2026)
• Alphabet: Q4 2025 earnings call, remarks from our CEO (2026)
• Alphabet: Q3 2025 earnings call, remarks from our CEO (2025)
• Alphabet: Q2 2025 earnings call, CEO’s remarks (2025)
• Meta: Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call transcript (2025)
• Meta: Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call transcript (2026)
• Meta: Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call transcript (2026)
• Microsoft: Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call (2025)
• Microsoft: Fiscal Year 2026 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call (2026)
• Anthropic: Anthropic raises $13B Series F (2025)
• Anthropic: Anthropic raises $30B Series G (2026)
• Anthropic: Anthropic raises $65B Series H (2026)
• Anthropic: Economic Index report, September 2025 (2025)
• TechCrunch: Perplexity received 780 million queries last month, CEO says (2025)
• Pew Research Center: Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact (2026)
• Pew Research Center: How opinions and use of AI differ by age (2026)
• Pew Research Center: From Diagnoses to Treatments, Why Americans Use AI Chatbots for Health (2026)
• Pew Research Center: How Teens Use and View AI (2026)
• Reuters Institute: Emerging uses of AI chatbots for news, Digital News Report 2026 (2026)
• Reuters Institute: Digital News Report 2026 executive summary (2026)
• Menlo Ventures: 2026: The State of Consumer AI (2026)
• Ahrefs: 63% of Websites Receive AI Traffic (New Study of 3,000 Sites) (2025)
• NBER: How People Use ChatGPT, Working Paper 34255 (2025)
• Salesforce: New Research: AI Service Agents Are Scaling and Delivering CSAT (2026)