ChatGPT Maintains Lead as Gemini and Other AI Tools Gain Ground in 2025

I looked into the most popular AI apps, and the runner-up caught me by surprise

Also: My top 5 free AI tools for school - and how they can help supercharge your learning Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) published a study tracking the most popular gen AI apps and what we use them for. ChatGPT and Gemini take the first and second spots on the list, respectively, for most unique monthly visits on the web and most monthly active users on mobile (though it did not specify exact numbers -- ZDNET has requested them from a16z). The rest of the list suggests shifts in global gen AI superpowers and why consumers seek specific platforms. After ChatGPT and Gemini, Deepseek, Grok, Character AI, Perplexity, and Claude occupy the next spots for web traffic. AI Gallery, Doubao, Microsoft Edge, Remini, and Baidu AI Search fill the subsequent top mobile gen AI apps. Canva does not appear on the list, despite coming in at number two after ChatGPT in April. The report notes that "products that have added significant generative AI features but are not AI native, such as Canva and Notion, are not included." According to a16z, which has invested in a majority of the companies listed, these 14 platforms can inform how consumers are using gen AI. The study narrows consumer behavior down to seven categories: general assistance (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe); companionship (Character AI); image generation (Midjourney, Leonardo); image and video editing (Veed, Cutout Pro); voice generation (Eleven Labs); productivity tools (Photoroom, Gamma, Quillbot); and model hosting (Civitai, HuggingFace). The report did not specify percentages for each category. Also: Gartner says add AI agents ASAP - or else. Oh, and they're also overhyped The study noted that mobile app stores cracking down on ChatGPT copycat apps are making way for novel gen AI apps to gain more popularity, including AI Gallery, Wink, YouCut, and Grok. The study also suggests that the gen AI web ecosystem is stabilizing -- meaning Google is separating out its AI domains (Gemini, AI Studio, Google Labs, and NotebookLM) -- which allows for clearer tracking of its properties' traffic, monthly active users, and use cases. That means products like Grok, Quark, Qwen3, and Lovable are seeing traffic increases. Google alone has four products on the a16z list, including Gemini, NotebookLM, Google Labs, and Google AI Studio. Despite ChatGPT's dominance in the general LLM assistant category, the study notes that Google, Grok, and Meta are closing the gap. Grok saw an almost 40% increase in monthly active users after the release of Grok 4 in July 2025. DeepSeek experienced a significant 22% drop-off in monthly active users. Also: I retested GPT-5's coding skills using OpenAI's guidance - and now I trust it even less The study also explores the increase in using gen AI for vibe coding, which entails developers using large language models to generate code, focusing more on the application's "vibe" rather than the code's intricacies. The study noted that although this practice is in its infancy, early data suggests that these platforms, such as Lovable, Replit, and Supabase, have loyal user bases. In the five a16z "Top 100 gen AI consumer apps" studies published so far, 14 platforms have always appeared in the top 50 web platforms: ChatGPT, Character AI, Civitai, Leonardo AI, ElevenLabs, Gamma, Hugging Face, Veed, Midjourney, Perplexity, Photoroom, Poe, QuillBot, and Cutout Pro.

Gemini now second to ChatGPT with 12% of its web traffic

The report lists 14 consistent AI leaders like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Midjourney, while newcomers such as Lovable and Replit break into the rankings. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz recently published its fifth report analyzing the consumer artificial intelligence sector, revealing shifts in the competitive landscape. The report examines two and a half years' worth of data, highlighting the usage of various consumer AI products and the emergence of new players challenging established leaders. The report identifies 14 companies that have consistently ranked among the top AI products across all five reports. These include ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, Character AI, Midjourney, Leonardo, Veed, Cutout, ElevenLabs, Photoroom, Gamma, QuillBot, Civitai, and Hugging Face. These companies represent diverse applications of AI, spanning general assistance, companionship, image and video editing, voice generation, productivity enhancement, and model hosting services. An additional five companies have appeared in all but the first report, indicating their sustained presence in the consumer AI market. This group comprises Claude, DeepAI, Janitor AI, Pixelcut, and Suno. These companies focus on areas such as general AI applications, companionship features, image editing tools, and music generation capabilities, respectively. Notably, Google has significantly expanded its presence in the generative AI consumer web product category. For the first time in Andreessen Horowitz's series of reports, Google secured four positions on the list with its products: Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Google Labs. The establishment of separate domains for these products has enabled independent tracking of their growth and performance. Andreessen Horowitz's analysis relies on data obtained from third-party market intelligence firms. Web product data is sourced from Similarweb, while mobile app data is provided by Sensor Tower. These data sources allow for a comprehensive assessment of consumer engagement with various AI products across different platforms. Gemini, Google's AI assistant, is gaining ground on ChatGPT in the mobile app market. While Gemini is the second most popular AI app, it currently has approximately half the monthly active users of ChatGPT. The report indicates that Gemini's AI technology experiences stronger adoption on Android devices, with nearly 90% of its monthly active user base utilizing the Android platform. On the web, Gemini also holds the second position, following ChatGPT, capturing approximately 12% of ChatGPT's website visits. This data points to a consistent trend of Gemini's growing presence across both mobile and web platforms, challenging ChatGPT's dominance in the consumer AI space. Google's AI Studio, a development environment for building applications with Gemini models, has entered the top 10 list of AI web products, securing the tenth position. NotebookLM, another Google product, ranks thirteenth on the list. Google Labs, a platform for showcasing Google's AI experiments such as Flow, Project Mariner, and Doppl, holds the thirty-ninth position. The report suggests that Meta AI and Grok are also competing with ChatGPT for market share. Grok, developed by xAI, has demonstrated rapid growth, ranking fourth on the web and twenty-third on mobile. This growth is particularly notable considering that Grok lacked a standalone app at the end of 2024, initially launching on the X platform. Grok's monthly active user base has reached over 20 million. The release of Grok 4 in July 2025 led to a nearly 40% increase in its usage, indicating a positive response to the updated model. This rapid expansion underscores Grok's potential to become a significant player in the consumer AI market. Meta AI, Meta's general-purpose assistant, holds the forty-sixth position on the web, maintaining its ranking from March. However, it did not secure a place on the list of top mobile AI apps. The report suggests that Meta AI's growth may have been affected by concerns regarding the public sharing of some users' posts without their informed consent. DeepSeek and Claude have experienced a flattening of growth on mobile. DeepSeek's mobile usage has declined by 22% from its peak. On the web, DeepSeek's decline is even more pronounced, falling more than 40% from its peak in February 2025. In contrast, Perplexity and Claude have continued to demonstrate growth. Several Chinese AI developers have achieved notable positions in the top 20 on the web. These include Quark, Alibaba's AI assistant, which ranks ninth (and forty-seventh on mobile); Doubao, ByteDance's general LLM product, which ranks twelfth (and fourth on mobile); and Kimi, a chatbot from Moonshot AI, which ranks seventeenth. These platforms primarily cater to the Chinese market, with 75% of their traffic originating from China. Seven additional companies featured on the web list were developed in China but have expanded their AI technologies globally. These companies include DeepSeek, Hailuo, Kling, SeaArt, Cutout Pro, Manus, and Monica, showcasing the increasing global reach of Chinese AI innovation. On mobile, 22 of the top 50 apps were developed in China; however, only three are primarily used within China. Prominent players in this category include Meitu (Photo & Video Editor, BeautyPlus, BeautyCam, Wink, and Airbrush), ByteDance (Doubao and Cici), Gauth, and Hypic, which offer a range of photo and video editing and enhancement tools. Vibe-coding startups Lovable and Replit have made their debut on the main list, having previously been excluded from Andreessen Horowitz's report in March. Websites built and published through Replit and Lovable without custom domains contribute to the traffic observed for replit.app and lovable.app, respectively. Andreessen Horowitz also identified AI applications that are nearing inclusion in the list of top AI apps. On the web, these include PixAI, Bolt, Blackbox AI, Clipchamp, and Getliner. On mobile, the list comprises Talkie, Seekee, Photo AI, AI Mirror, and Arvin. The report concludes that the mobile list features more newcomers than previous reports. This shift is attributed to app stores' stricter enforcement against ChatGPT clones and copycats, which has created opportunities for more original AI applications to gain traction and establish themselves in the market.

Top AI Tools of 2025: Is ChatGPT still leading or is Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek taking over?

Top AI tools 2025: Rivals to ChatGPT, like Google's Gemini and xAI's Grok, are steadily closing the gap to OpenAI's popular chatbot, according to a new report from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) focused on the consumer AI landscape, as per a report. This latest edition of the report marks its fifth iteration and includes data spanning two and a half years, tracking how consumers are evolving in their use of AI products, as per TechCrunch. For the fifth consecutive time, 14 companies consistently appeared on the list of top AI products: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, Character AI, Midjourney, Leonardo, Veed, Cutout, Eleven Labs, Photoroom, Gamma, Quillbot, Civitai, and HuggingFace, as reported by TechCrunch. These companies represent a diverse mix of AI applications, including general assistance, companionship, image and video editing, voice generation, productivity, and model hosting, according to the report. Additionally, five other companies, Claude, DeepAI, JanitorAI, Pixelcut, and Suno, have featured on all but the very first report and they cover categories such as general AI use, companionship, image editing, and music generation, as per TechCrunch. ALSO READ: How AI agents are taking control of your company -- sharing secrets, making costly decisions, and deleting data TechCrunch reported that for the first time in the report series, Google secured four spots among the top generative AI consumer web products with Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Google Labs. These Google products now operate on their own separate domains, making it easier to track their individual growth, according to the report. Notably, Google's Gemini app ranks second on mobile devices, narrowing the gap with ChatGPT, which remains number one, as per the TechCrunch report. However, Gemini has nearly half the number of monthly active users compared to ChatGPT, according to the report. Gemini's adoption is strongest on Android, where about 90% of its user base resides. On the web, Gemini also holds second place, but with roughly 12% of ChatGPT's web visits, reported TechCrunch. Google's AI Studio, designed as a developer sandbox for building with Gemini models, made it into the top 10 AI web products at 10th place, while NotebookLM ranked 13th, as per the report. Google Labs, a hub for experimental AI projects like Flow, Project Mariner, and Doppl, came in at 39th, as reported by TechCrunch. ALSO READ: Is AI therapy safe? Hidden risks you must know before using chatbots for mental health Grok has been growing quickly, reaching fourth place on the web and 23rd on mobile. This growth is remarkable considering Grok only launched as a standalone app after being initially available on social media platform X, as reported by TechCrunch. Its user base surged past 20 million monthly active users, especially after the release of Grok 4 in July 2025, which boosted usage by nearly 40%, according to the report. ALSO READ: How the US army is using TikTok and Instagram influencers to recruit new Gen Z soldiers? Meta's general assistant ranked 46th on the web, unchanged since March, and did not make the top mobile AI apps list, as per TechCrunch. The app faced challenges after reports surfaced that Meta AI was publicly sharing some users' posts without their consent, according to the TechCrunch report. Other apps like DeepSeek saw declines on mobile, with DeepSeek dropping 22% from its peak and dropped over 40% on the web since February 2025, as per TechCrunch. Meanwhile, Perplexity and Claude continue to grow steadily, according to the report. ALSO READ: Bitcoin hitting $200,000? Analysts say don't bet on it -- the odds are slim to none Chinese AI companies also made strong showings, with Quark (Alibaba's AI assistant) ranking 9th on the web and 47th on mobile, ByteDance's Doubao ranking 12th on the web and 4th on mobile, and Kimi (from Moonshot AI) ranking 17th, reported TechCrunch. These apps draw 75% of their traffic from China, as per the report. Is ChatGPT the most-used AI app? Yes, ChatGPT remains the top AI app on both web and mobile. Why isn't Meta AI performing as well as others? Meta AI faced criticism for publicly sharing user posts without permission.