Okay y’all… the AI chatbot race just took a wild turn — and nobody’s talking about how big this actually is. But we will.
So here’s the quick, no-nonsense breakdown of what’s happening right now between ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini… because the numbers are kinda insane.
First up: ChatGPT is slowing down.
Not collapsing, not dying — nothing dramatic. But after two years of ridiculous growth, the chart is finally flattening. Sensor Tower says that from August to November, ChatGPT only grew 6% in monthly active users. For an app that used to sprint, this is basically walking.
The awkward part? Engagement time is down 10%.
And downloads? Well it’s growing way slower than the rest of the market. Now it’s still huge… but slowing.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, Gemini is full-on sprinting. Like… outpacing-everyone sprinting, we’re talking.
Monthly active users up 30% in the same period
Daily time spent up 120%
Downloads exploding nearly 190% YoY
And the funniest part? A lot of this hype comes from one model drop — Nano Banana, Google’s new image generator that people absolutely will not stop playing with.
And if you think this is just a two-player fight… you’re wrong.
Perplexity and Claude are flying too, with nearly triple-digit growth:
Perplexity is up 370% YoY
Claude is up 190% YoY
They're basically eating up market share and making the whole space way more chaotic than it was last year.
In short: For the first time ever, the chatbot market actually feels like… well, a market with real competition, real movement, and real chaos.
Here’s why:
Gemini increased its share of global monthly active users by 3 percentage points over seven months
ChatGPT’s share dropped 3 points in just four months
Perplexity hit the highest download growth at 215% YoY
The overall cohort grew to 110%, outpacing ChatGPT’s 85%
So what’s OpenAI doing?
They’ve issued a quiet-but-not-quiet-at-all “code red.”
Sam Altman basically told the team to double down and beef things up in areas like:
Personalization
Reliability (less hallucination)
Image generation
Rolling out new stuff to stay ahead
Which… honestly makes sense, because Gemini’s biggest advantage isn’t just features — it’s distribution.
Deep Android integration means millions of people use Gemini without ever downloading the app. You see, that's a cheat code ChatGPT simply doesn’t have.
So what does all this actually mean?
We’re watching the first real inflection point in the chatbot era.
ChatGPT’s still the king with its huge lead, massive brand, massive usage — but Gemini just proved the crown isn’t glued on. And if OpenAI drops something major again… the whole race reshuffles.
In other words: this isn’t the end of anything. This is the moment where things finally get interesting.
And if you were wondering what 2026 might look like… well, we have a clue.
PS: We asked our AI about the possibility of OpenAI hitting 1 billion users after feeding it enough data. Guess what it said?
Well… you’ll have to check for yourself — it’s mind-blowingly interesting!
You can find out more here.
