More than three and a half years after ChatGPT's initial release, the landscape of AI assistants is shifting swiftly. While OpenAI’s chatbot remains the most popular worldwide, with over 1.1 billion monthly users, its global market share has dipped below 50% for the first time, thanks to competition from Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.

Until January, ChatGPT commanded over half of the market but by May, it had fallen to 46.4%, with Gemini leading at 27.7% and Claude following at 10.3%. Other assistants like Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Meta AI have less than 5% market share.

Users are increasingly willing to switch between assistants, driven by events such as OpenAI's controversial deal with the U.S. Department of Defense in February, which triggered a measurable spike in uninstalls. Brand trust and values alignment matter more now than just features.

In the first half of 2026, people are on pace to download nearly 2.3 billion AI apps and spend over $4.2 billion on them—a jump that suggests the industry is shifting its focus from pure growth toward monetization. Both download and spend growth rates have decelerated, indicating a maturing market.

Regionally, Asia recorded the first download decline of 3.3% in Q1 2026, driven by dips in China and India. Despite leading globally in total downloads, Asia trails North America and Europe when it comes to in-app spending—a split that matters for companies deciding where to invest in premium features and monetization.