The world of generative AI is changing. The hegemony of OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the web traffic front is starting to show cracks, with Gemini quickly catching up, new data from market intelligence firm Similarweb has revealed.
| Platform | Web Traffic Share (Current) | Web Traffic Share (Previous Year) | Mobile App Downloads |
| ChatGPT | 68% | 87% | 940 Million+ |
| Gemini | 18% | 5% | 200 Million+ |
| Grok | 3% | N/A | 50 Million+ |
ChatGPT is still the top dog, but its dominance is slipping. ChatGPT’s share of web traffic to leading generative AI sites has fallen from 87% to 68% over the past year.
In the same time, Google’s Gemini has enjoyed a rapid rise from a 5% share to its now leading 18%, an impressive gain for the search behemoth’s principal AI framework.
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The Rise of Grok and the Engagement King
The data also reflects the rise of other players. Grok, owned by Elon Musk, has acquired a 3% share of web traffic. Even more impressive, Grok is now the leader in user engagement, with an average session time of 7 minutes.
It is this high stickiness of the platform, arising from its tight cross pollination with the X platform and emphasis on real time information more than other available alternatives in a crowded market, that keeps users coming back again and again.
A Fragmenting but Growing Pie
The shifts in market share are part of a broader pattern. The AI market isn’t contracting, it’s splintering. Total visits to generative AI sites continue to explode, up 76% year over year.
As hardware becomes more powerful and more dedicated, capable of supporting advanced sensors and perceiving data, users are no longer limited to confining their time and interest to one platform.
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The Mobile Blind Spot
Advocates of ChatGPT’s supremacy are quick to point out that web traffic is an incomplete measure. They emphasize ChatGPT’s huge head start in mobile overall, with 940 million lifetime app downloads compared to Gemini’s 200 million.
That gap hints at how a fair amount of AI interaction is heading offline and into specialized apps and embedded services such as action recognition in video, a domain where OpenAI still has a clear lead.
The traffic switch is a key signpost, but only one part of an ecosystem wide war for consumer time and attention in the generative AI age.
