ChatGPT впервые потерял большинство рынка: доля AI-ассистента упала ниже 50%

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

Three Years of Undisputed Leadership

Since launching in November 2022, ChatGPT has essentially 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 internet history. By 2024, the monthly audience exceeded 200 million people, and ChatGPT itself became synonymous with the term "AI assistant."

Throughout this time, the service controlled more than half of the global market. Competitors emerged one after another: Google launched Bard, Microsoft integrated GPT into Bing, Anthropic released Claude, and dozens of smaller players appeared. But individually, no one could compete with the flagship: no competitor crossed the 25% market share threshold.

The dominance seemed unshakeable. Now the picture has changed. The combined share of all alternatives exceeded 50% for the first time.

ChatGPT remains the largest single player — the market has simply become genuinely competitive.

Who Took a Bite Out of the Market

Over the past eighteen months, the competitive environment has intensified significantly. Several players have grown to significant scale and formed their own loyal audiences:

• Google Gemini — built into Android, search, and Workspace, reaching billions of users without requiring additional effort from them
• Microsoft Copilot — integrated into Windows, Office 365, and Edge, gaining a ready-made corporate audience
• Perplexity AI — grew as a search engine with AI answers and source links
• Claude (Anthropic) — gaining popularity as a more careful assistant among developers and researchers
• Meta AI — built into WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, reaching audiences who never downloaded a separate AI app

None of them became the sole challenger for first place. But together they broke OpenAI's monopoly.

What Changed for Users

Falling below 50% is a psychologically significant threshold. It marks the end of an era when "AI assistant" and "ChatGPT" were synonymous. Users began consciously choosing a tool for their task: some prefer Gemini for integration with Google services, some prefer Perplexity for verifiable links, some prefer Claude for fewer refusals, some prefer Meta AI simply because it's already in their favorite messenger.

"For the first time since

ChatGPT's launch, competitors combined have surpassed it in market share," — TechCrunch notes, citing Sensor Tower data.

For OpenAI, this is not a catastrophe: in absolute numbers, ChatGPT continues to grow, and the company closed an investment round in 2025 at $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation. But relative compression creates real pressure: it's harder to justify a $20 monthly subscription when Gemini is free and built into every Android phone, and Claude offers comparable quality at the same price. Pressure comes from two sides: from below — free built-in solutions from Google and Meta, which capture users by default; from above — specialized tools like Perplexity or Claude that handle specific tasks better: search with sources, coding, analysis of long documents.

What It Means

The AI assistant market is maturing: the pioneer's monopoly is giving way to genuine competition. For users, this is good — pressure for quality and price increases, choice expands. For businesses building products on top of a single provider — a signal to diversify their bets: dependence on one platform is becoming a risk.

*Meta is recognized as an extremist organization and is banned in the Russian Federation.