OpenAI’s ChatGPT, still the clear leader among AI chatbots, has lost a chunk of its market share in terms of global app downloads over the past year as fast-growing competitor Claude has surged, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shared with Forbes.
Leading AI chatbot ChatGPT still dominates, but has lost ground to rivals like Claude in recent months. (Photo Illustration by Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Sensor Tower, which measured downloads of six leading AI apps, found ChatGPT accounted for 47% of downloads of all these apps globally in the second quarter of 2026 so far, below its prior level of dominance—in the second quarter of 2025, ChatGPT accounted for 67% of all AI app downloads, according to insights analyst Kara Lee.
In its infancy, ChatGPT quickly became the fastest-growing consumer app within two months of launch, garnering 100 million users by January 2023.
Google’s Gemini remains second behind ChatGPT, accounting for 22% of AI app downloads in Q2 2026 so far, but below its peak market share of 34% of AI app downloads in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Anthropic’s Claude has shown the most dramatic growth in recent months, accounting for 14% of AI app downloads in Q2 2026 so far, whereas it only accounted for 1% of AI app downloads for each quarter of 2025.
ChatGPT’s monthly active users are up 67% year-over-year as of the second quarter of 2026 so far, Sensor Tower found, but its growth is much lower than Claude, which has surged 627% year-over-year in terms of monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower.
Though ChatGPT is still the clear leader in terms of overall AI chatbot usage, Sensor Tower said its data suggests consumers this year “may be more open to exploring competitive AI offerings than in 2025.”
Data from Similarweb shows ChatGPT’s dominance in terms of website visits has also slid over the past year. In April 2026, ChatGPT accounted for 53.7% of all visits to AI chatbot websites, according to Similarweb, down from the 77.6% of AI chatbot website visits it accounted for one year prior. Over that same period, web visits to Gemini and Claude surged. In April, Gemini accounted for 26.7% of all AI web visits (up from about 7% the year prior) while Claude represented about 8% of AI chatbot web visits (up from roughly 1% the year before).
Though ChatGPT still maintains a strong lead over competitors, its web traffic has hardly budged this year, according to Similarweb. ChatGPT’s global web traffic is up just 7% year-over-year as of April, logging an average of 183.7 million web visits per day that month—which is actually a slight decrease from the 184.6 million daily average web visits it logged in January. Similarly, ChatGPT’s total number of daily active users on mobile apps has barely moved in 2026 so far, according to Similarweb. In April, ChatGPT had an average of 245 million daily active users on mobile apps worldwide, just a slight increase from the 241 million average daily active users it logged in January, Similarweb data shows.
Claude experienced a sudden surge of app downloads earlier this year when Anthropic publicly clashed with the Department of Defense over a contract dispute, raising the chatbot’s national profile and sparking a still-going feud between the AI company and the Trump administration. In February, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote a blog post saying he objected to the administration’s use of Anthropic technology for mass domestic surveillance and to power autonomous weapons, prompting a swift rebuke from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security, and President Donald Trump, who called it a “radical left, woke” company. Over the following week, Claude app downloads surged 55% week-over-week, according to data from Similarweb. OpenAI—which swiftly struck a deal with the Defense Department amid its clash with Anthropic—saw a 5.6% decrease in app downloads for ChatGPT over the same period, according to Similarweb, as some users urged a ChatGPT boycott. Amid the Defense Department drama, Anthropic unveiled a feature that would allow users to import their data from other chatbots to Claude, making Claude instantly familiar with the user’s background and preferences, in an apparent bid to siphon users from competitors. Greg Feingold, a special projects manager at Anthropic, shared the update in a post on X, saying: “Ready to make the switch?”
OpenAI is preparing to file for an initial public offering shortly, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, with the goal of going public by September. Anthropic, which the Journal also reported is expected to have its first profitable quarter in the second quarter of 2026, is also reportedly targeting an IPO this year.
Claude Surges Amid Defense Department Drama—Downloads Up 55% (Forbes)
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