ChatGPT’s reign is threatened by these AI rivals
ChatGPT might be the prom king of chatbots, but the runners-up are definitely catching up. Data from Similarweb and Sensor Tower indicates that other services, including Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Anthropic’s Claude, are seeing significant user gains.
Looking at web traffic, Gemini saw a 7.4% month-over-month increase in March, reaching 10.9 million average daily visits worldwide. Microsoft’s Copilot wasn’t far behind, increasing to 2.4 million daily visits, a 2.1% lift from February, according to Similarweb.
Other AI platforms are also making waves. Anthropic’s Claude hit 3.3 million average daily visits in March, while Chinese AI lab DeepSeek’s chatbot and xAI’s Grok both reached 16.5 million visits that same month, reports Similarweb. Grok, which launched its web app recently, saw substantial growth.
While ChatGPT still leads the pack with over 500 million weekly active users in late March, the competition for the number two spot is heating up. According to Similarweb’s editor David Carr, DeepSeek held second place in March despite a 25% traffic drop from February. Carr also noted that Elon Musk’s xAI’s Grok is currently the AI platform with the most momentum, experiencing an almost 800% month-over-month increase in traffic.
Mobile chatbot apps are also experiencing growth, potentially driven by recent AI model releases. Sensor Tower data revealed a 21% week-over-week increase in weekly active users for the Claude app during the week of February 24, coinciding with the release of Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet model. Similarly, Gemini app weekly active users grew by 42% shortly after Google launched its Gemini 2.0 Flash model.
Sensor Tower’s senior insights analyst Abraham Yousef credits the rising popularity of AI chatbots to new models and features, according to TechCrunch. For example, Google recently introduced a “canvas” feature to Gemini, enabling users to preview coding project outputs, while Anthropic has been consistently adding tools to its Claude client.
According to Yousef, the user growth for AI chatbot apps has been propelled by these factors:
- The rollout of popular new AI models.
- Heightened consumer interest in the space.
- The introduction of various new features and functions.
- The growing number of unique use cases.
Despite the increasing competition, OpenAI isn’t showing any signs of distress. As of March, ChatGPT had 10 times more mobile app weekly active users than Gemini and Claude combined, according to Yousef.