ChatGPT loses its majority for the first time: the AI assistant's market share falls below 50%

For the first time in its history, ChatGPT has lost the absolute majority of the AI assistant market: its share has dropped below 50%, according to data from the analytics company Sensor Tower. Three and a half years after launch, the competition has finally caught up with the pioneer.

Three years of undivided leadership

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has almost single-handedly created the market for mass-market AI assistants. OpenAI's service gained its first million users in five days, faster than any other product in the history of the internet. By 2024, its monthly audience exceeded 200 million people, and ChatGPT itself became a synonym for the concept of an "AI assistant". Throughout that time, the service controlled more than half of the global market.

Competitors appeared one after another: Google launched Bard, Microsoft integrated GPT into Bing, Anthropic came out with Claude, and dozens of smaller players emerged. But individually, no one could rival the flagship: no competitor ever passed a quarter of the market. Its dominance seemed unshakable.

Now the picture has changed. The combined share of all alternatives has exceeded 50% for the first time. ChatGPT is still the largest single player; the market has simply become genuinely competitive.

Who took a bite of the market

Over the past year and a half, the competitive landscape has become sharply denser. Several players have grown to significant scale at once and built their own loyal audiences:

• Google Gemini is built into Android, Search and Workspace, reaching billions of users without any extra effort on their part
• Microsoft Copilot is integrated into Windows, Office 365 and Edge, giving it a ready-made corporate audience
• Perplexity AI grew as a search engine with AI answers and links to sources
• Claude (Anthropic) is gaining popularity among developers and researchers as a more careful assistant
• Meta AI is built into WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, reaching audiences that never downloaded a standalone AI app

None of them has become the sole challenger for first place. But together they have broken OpenAI's monopoly.

What has changed for users

The drop below 50% is a psychologically significant threshold. It marks the end of an era when "AI assistant" and "ChatGPT" were synonyms. Users have started deliberately choosing a tool for the task: some prefer Gemini for its integration with Google services, others Perplexity for its verifiable links, others Claude for fewer refusals, and others Meta AI simply because it is already in their favorite messenger.

"For the first time since ChatGPT's launch, its competitors combined have surpassed it in market share,"

TechCrunch states, citing Sensor Tower data.

For OpenAI this is not a catastrophe: in absolute numbers ChatGPT keeps growing, and in 2025 the company closed a $40 billion funding round at a $300 billion valuation. But the relative squeeze creates real pressure: it is harder to justify a $20-a-month subscription when Gemini is built into every Android phone for free, and Claude offers comparable quality at the same price.

The pressure comes from two sides at once. From below, free built-in solutions from Google and Meta capture users by default. From above, specialized tools such as Perplexity or Claude handle specific tasks better: search with sources, coding, and analysis of long documents.

What this means

The AI assistant market is maturing: the pioneer's monopoly is giving way to real competition. For users, that is good news, since pressure on quality and price is growing and choice is widening. For businesses building products on top of a single provider, it is a signal to diversify their bets: dependence on one platform is becoming a risk.

*Meta has been designated an extremist organization and is banned in Russia.