Joe Maring / Android Authority

While ChatGPT remains the de facto giant in the AI market, OpenAI has faced several issues over the last year or so amid increasingly negative press. Not only was last year’s launch of GPT-5 a bit rocky at first, but the company also came under fire earlier this year for its involvement with the US government and the DoJ. More recently, it made headlines after it came to light that a recent Florida shooter had used the tool to plan the crime as well.

Gemini’s trajectory has been quite a bit different. When Google Bard first launched, it had its strengths but was largely considered inferior to OpenAI’s approach.

In 2024, Google rebranded it as Gemini and began dramatically improving the service. By the end of the year, Gemini was pulling in around 90-140 million monthly users, which represented a large chunk of AI users, but it was dwarfed by ChatGPT’s 200-250 million monthly users.

Since then, we’ve seen massive improvements to its models, superior service integration, and other moves that have arguably made Gemini the most important competitor to ChatGPT.

In 2026, ChatGPT is an unstoppable giant with roughly 900 million weekly users, but Gemini is slowly catching up. Even though Gemini’s 750 million monthly users might sound small by comparison, most other AI platforms have far fewer users. For example, Claude has seen a meteoric rise in 2026, and yet it still only sees about 30 million monthly users.

There are many reasons why the gap is drastically closing, but below are just four of the reasons why Gemini is on the rise.

Gemini comes with Drive storage

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

For the longest time, pretty much every major AI subscription service in the US started at around $20. In 2026, this changed, as both OpenAI and Google rolled out their own entry-level AI subscriptions, both of which start around $8. That said, Google Gemini still stands out as the better value for several reasons.

One of them is ecosystem integration, which we’ll get to shortly. Another big difference is that Google Gemini includes at least 200GB of Google Drive storage space in its entry-level plan, with its Pro tier jumping up to 5TB. This represents a savings of $3 and $10, respectively. This means the entry tier is closer to $5 if you already planned on paying for Google One storage. For those who prefer more space, Google One charges $10 a month for 2TB, and so getting a Google AI Pro plan gives you more space and access to Gemini Pro for just $10 more than you’d pay for Google One alone.

By comparison? OpenAI gives you access to ChatGPT and a few of its other AI-related tools, and that’s it. No storage space, no extra bundled subscriptions, zilch.

Gemini has better ecosystem integration

Adamya Sharma / Android Authority

While it’s true that ChatGPT has a decent number of third-party integrations, the same can be said for Gemini. Google also has the advantage of owning a ton of different products and services, which are deeply integrated with the Gemini experience.

Not only does Gemini integrate with many core Google apps like Keep, Drive, and Gmail, but select subscription tiers will soon offer a new cloud-based AI agent called Google Spark, which will be able to complete various tasks across apps like Gmail and Docs. For example, Spark can scan credit card statements to spot forgotten subscriptions and then inform you about them.

Android itself is also increasingly reliant on Gemini, as it is far more than a simple voice assistant for Android in 2026. Not only is it baked into most major apps, but it has system-level control capabilities on most Android devices, on-screen context features like Circle to Search, and so much more.

Google's AI technology is wrapped into practically everything the company does in 2026.

This AI-powered evolution isn’t stopping anytime soon, either. At Google I/O 2026, the company announced that Google Play will soon offer Gemini-powered app integrations, and the new Android Halo system will make it easier to track activities performed by Gemini Spark and other supported agents. Those with AI Pro and AI Plus now also have access to the AI Inbox feature in Gmail, which sits on top of the normal Gmail inbox and can provide summaries, suggest draft replies, and more.

Moving past the Android and Google services integration, even Google Search isn’t safe from Gemini’s reach. Google Search is getting a Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered upgrade, giving users the power to use Search agents to watch out for news on particular topics, track price changes, and perform other similar tasks.

Bottom line, ChatGPT has done a great job partnering with a wide range of companies, but it just can’t compete with the sheer number of services Google has its hands in.

Gemini is arguably better at image and video generation

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

One area where Google clearly stands on top is video generation. While OpenAI’s Sora was immensely popular for AI video generation early on, over time, the platform was quickly overshadowed by the rise of several prominent competitors. Gemini Veo is arguably one of the biggest competitors here. As if Google wasn’t punching hard enough in this space, it also recently introduced Gemini Omni, a multimodal model that builds upon Veo’s foundations to help users easily create videos using text, audio, still, and even other videos.

Gemini is the obvious leader in video generation, but I'd argue Google is ahead in image generation as well.

These days, ChatGPT has retired Sora altogether as a stand-alone experience. While there are still technically ways to generate video using plugins and other methods in ChatGPT, it’s clear that OpenAI has shifted its focus away from video generation, at least for now.

While OpenAI continues to offer image generation, I’d argue that Gemini still has a lead here as well. Sure, GPT Image 2 produces decent enough images with a bit of work, but Gemini is faster, better at editing, and tends to follow prompts more accurately in my experience.

A useful free tier helped Gemini stand out

Brady Snyder / Android Authority

By baking Gemini features into almost everything it does, Google is ensuring people are exposed to its AI technology as much as possible. The fact that you can easily reach it from Google Search doesn’t hurt, either. That means many people are likely to encounter Gemini in some capacity, even if they don’t actively seek out AI tools or chatbots.

What also helps is that Google’s free tier tends to be more usable than ChatGPT’s. Those who don’t want to pay aren’t necessarily going to choose the best or most popular option; instead, they’ll go with whatever has the fewest usage restrictions.

As far as text-based interactions go, the free Gemini tier tends to be much more generous with its limitations than ChatGPT.

ChatGPT free accounts can send up to 10 messages with GPT-5.5 every five hours; after that, they default to the less-powerful mini model until the cap resets. In contrast, Gemini doesn’t use a strict message count and instead has a compute-based dynamic allowance. For text-based interactions, that means you’ll get many more high-quality answers before hitting a wall. That said, multimodal capabilities burn through this allowance much faster.

Both free versions have their limits, but Gemini is largely the better option if you don’t plan on paying for a subscription.

It’s not any one reason, but the sum of all its parts

Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority

Even though Google was already a massive player long before the AI revolution, it came into the AI game a bit late. But an aggressive strategy involving deep integration dramatically reduced the gap between it and other leading AI platforms.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT started out with a much stronger reputation as a non-profit with a clear vision for the future. Over time, the reputation has fallen downward as it walked back its non-profit nature and started making changes, such as experimenting with ads and working with the Department of Justice.

Any one of the reasons above probably wouldn’t have mattered much alone, but the combination of Google’s advantages and OpenAI’s follies has given Gemini the perfect recipe for success. ChatGPT is still largely one of the most powerful AI platforms and has clear advantages. That said, the gap is smaller than ever, and the added value with Google’s AI subscription services is getting harder and harder to ignore.

The fact that Google makes it easy to run into Gemini naturally across its products and services also increases exposure in a way that makes it increasingly likely that the gap will only shorten in the coming years unless OpenAI makes some big changes to counter it.