ChatGPT holds 56.4% of AI chatbot web traffic as Gemini and Claude gain ground

Many browsers keep a chatbot tab open beside email and a calendar. People turn to these assistants to draft a memo, untangle a block of code, or settle a dispute that used to send them to a search engine. Each of those sessions is a small choice, and millions of small choices harden into a habit. The assistant people pick by default shapes which company earns their daily attention. Knowing where those clicks land tells you which tools have become part of the routine and which ones remain a curiosity.

Loyalty in this market can move. An early favorite can look untouchable, yet rivals with enormous distribution networks or a sharper pitch to specific kinds of work can poach its audience. The central issue is whether chatbot use is consolidating around one destination or spreading across several. Traffic to each chatbot's own site offers a revealing lens on that tension. A person who types an address or clicks a bookmark has sought out a tool on purpose, which signals something different from a feature that surfaces inside familiar software. Tracking those deliberate trips across months exposes momentum that a single snapshot would hide. The same record can reveal whether a challenger's gains come at the expense of the leader or of the smaller players crowding the edges.

Visual Capitalist charted Similarweb data on each chatbot's share of global website visits in September 2026 and set those figures against shares from October 2025. Its estimated visit counts derive from Similarweb's published shares, scaled from a visit total the firm released for one chatbot. The ranking covers seven named chatbots, along with a small slice of other services grouped together. Microsoft $MSFT's Copilot figure covers visits to Copilot's standalone website and excludes the versions of the assistant built into Windows and Office. Every comparison in the list that follows measures change in percentage points of share.

Illustration: Quartz

OpenAI's ChatGPT pulled an estimated 5.9 billion website visits in September 2026, capturing 56.4% of all traffic to AI chatbot sites. Its tally exceeds the 4,561 million visits that every other chatbot in the ranking, plus the small "other" group, drew combined. Gemini, the closest challenger, registered 2.6 billion. OpenAI's assistant attracted more than twice the audience of its nearest competitor. Claude, in third, logged 1.0 billion, less than a fifth of ChatGPT's count. ChatGPT pulled close to seven times the visits of DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity put together.

ChatGPT's grip has loosened over the past year. The assistant held 71.8% of chatbot web sessions in October 2025, close to three of every four, and its portion shrank by 15.4 percentage points over the following 11 months. Measured against its own baseline, OpenAI's product gave up 21% of the slice it commanded at the start. The points it lost add up to more than Claude's entire September share.

Gemini and Claude gained a combined 18.7 points over the same span, more than ChatGPT's full decline. The 3.3-point gap between those figures matches what DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity surrendered together. ChatGPT's loss ran more than four times as large. Neither rival offset the drop by itself. The reshuffling moved a large block of web traffic without pushing OpenAI's chatbot below a majority.

ChatGPT has regained ground since April 2026. Its portion fell 18.1 points between October 2025 and April, reaching 53.7%, before recovering to 56.4% by September. The 2.7-point rebound across five months trimmed the year's net erosion. OpenAI's assistant began showing ads to free users in early 2026, during the stretch in which Claude's growth sped up.

ChatGPT would have to forfeit another 6.4 points before slipping below half of all chatbot site visits, even after a year of retreat. Its gains since April have widened that cushion.

Illustration: Quartz

## 2. Gemini climbs to 25.0% of chatbot visits

Gemini, Google $GOOGL's chatbot, drew 2,615 million website visits in September 2026, good for a 25.0% slice of all chatbot web traffic. Its share stood at 13.6% in October 2025. The 11.4-percentage-point climb marks the biggest gain any chatbot posted between those two months, and it left Gemini with a portion close to double its earlier size.

ChatGPT's lead over Gemini shrank from 58.2 percentage points in October 2025 to 31.4 points in September 2026. Gemini's advance equals about three-quarters of the ground ChatGPT surrendered across the same stretch. Gemini and Claude stood alone among the major chatbots in adding share, and Gemini claimed 11.4 of the 18.7 points the pair picked up. Google's assistant absorbed more than three of every five points that changed hands across the field.

Google's large user base powered the rise, in the report's reading. The authors credit the chatbot's reach to the audience Google already serves. The traffic figures record where visits went, and they leave the question of cause to that interpretation. The report explains Claude's climb through its focus on coding and knowledge work, so Gemini stands as the one riser whose gains the authors tie to an existing audience.

Gemini's share slipped from 26.7% in April 2026 to 25.0% by September, a loss of 1.7 points, while ChatGPT recovered part of its lost ground over those same months. Most of Gemini's earlier gain survived the dip. Of the 13.1 points the chatbot had added between October 2025 and April 2026, it kept 11.4, or 87% of the total.

Google's chatbot and ChatGPT command a combined 81.4% of chatbot web visits, leaving 18.6% for everything else. Gemini's 2,615 million visits come to about 2.6 times the 1,004 million that Claude, the third-place chatbot, drew in September 2026. Even after slipping since April, Gemini holds a quarter of all chatbot visits, and Claude would need to more than double its traffic to draw level.

Illustration: Quartz

Anthropic's Claude drew 1,004 million website visits in September 2026, giving it 9.6% of AI chatbot traffic and third place among the seven named assistants. Its slice stood at 2.3% in October 2025. The 7.3-point climb more than quadrupled Claude's portion, the largest relative jump of any chatbot on the list.

Claude's growth picked up speed in early 2026. Anthropic aired Super Bowl ads in February that pitched Claude as an assistant with no advertising. Around the same time, ChatGPT started showing ads to people on its free tier. The move left the two products on opposite sides of an open split over monetization. By April 2026, Claude had reached 8.0%, a gain of 5.7 points in six months.

Momentum cooled after April without reversing. Claude added another 1.6 points through September, a slower clip than its earlier surge. Gemini, the other fast-rising challenger, surrendered part of its ground over those same months. Of the two rivals chipping at ChatGPT's lead, Claude alone kept advancing to the end of the period.

The report credits Claude's rise to its emphasis on coding and knowledge work, along with wider public awareness of the brand. The February ad campaign landed in the same months Claude pulled away, a timeline consistent with the awareness half of that reading.

Claude and Gemini hold 34.6% of chatbot visits between them, more than one-third of the market. Across the major chatbots, only those two expanded their footing from October 2025 to September 2026. Claude's September total tops the 848 million visits that DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity drew combined, by a margin of 156 million.

Eleven months earlier, five chatbots clustered between 2.0% and 4.1% of web traffic, and Claude sat inside that group. Claude has broken out of the cluster and opened a gap that none of its former peers has started to close.

Illustration: Quartz

## DeepSeek slips to 3.4% of chatbot visits

DeepSeek pulled 356 million website visits in September 2026, giving it a 3.4% slice of chatbot traffic, down 0.7 percentage points from 4.1% in October 2025. The dip looks small in absolute terms. Measured against its own starting point, DeepSeek surrendered 17% of the portion it held 11 months earlier.

DeepSeek's proportional decline was the mildest among the four trailing chatbots. Grok forfeited 18% of its October 2025 share, Copilot shed 25%, and Perplexity lost 64%. DeepSeek's retreat in points still exceeded the half-point losses at Grok and Copilot. A larger base turns a gentler percentage loss into a bigger raw drop. DeepSeek's share eroded at a slower pace than its peers' shares did, yet none of the four stopped losing ground.

Claude overtook DeepSeek over the same stretch. In October 2025, DeepSeek's figure stood at about 1.8 times Claude's 2.3%. Claude's 1,004 million September sessions came to 2.8 times DeepSeek's count. DeepSeek kept the bulk of its earlier share. Claude's surge drove most of the swing. A reversal of that size in under a year shows how little security an edge among the challengers provides.

DeepSeek commands the largest following among the four smallest named chatbots. It outdrew Grok's 241 million by 115 million, more than doubled Copilot's 157 million, and came close to quadrupling Perplexity's 94 million. The four combined claim 8.1% of the September total, and DeepSeek supplies 3.4 points, or 42%. Its fall accounted for 21% of the 3.3 points the group lost since October 2025. The three smaller peers absorbed the remaining 79%. DeepSeek has become the anchor of the trailing pack.

ChatGPT drew 5,899 million, more than 16 times DeepSeek's total. Gemini's 2,615 million amounted to more than seven times DeepSeek's figure. Holding up better than its peers in relative terms left DeepSeek on the losing side of a market where only Gemini and Claude gained ground.

Illustration: Quartz

Grok, the xAI chatbot, drew 241 million website visits in September 2026, which gave it 2.3% of all AI chatbot traffic. Its tally lands between DeepSeek's 356 million and Copilot's 157 million, about 115 million behind the first and 84 million ahead of the second. Gaps in this band run in the tens of millions. ChatGPT, by contrast, logged more than 24 times as many sessions as Grok.

Grok's portion shrank from 2.8% in October 2025, a loss of 0.5 percentage points that matches Copilot's decline to the decimal. Measured against its starting level, the drop erased close to 18% of Grok's original slice.

Claude's climb carried it past Grok during the same stretch. In October 2025, Grok held 2.8% to Claude's 2.3%. By September 2026, Claude had reached 9.6%, a 7.3-point lead over xAI's assistant. Claude's 1,004 million visits amount to more than four times the sessions Grok attracts. The pass also cost Grok a position. Grok sat fourth in October 2025, behind ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek, and now sits fifth, with Claude the lone rival to move ahead of it.

Grok's half-point slide formed one piece of a broader retreat among the smaller players. DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity surrendered 3.3 points between them, dropping from 11.4% to 8.1% combined. Perplexity's 1.6-point fall and DeepSeek's 0.7-point dip both cut deeper than Grok's. Gemini and Claude were the only major chatbots to gain ground.

Grok weathered the retreat better than its group as a whole. The four smaller chatbots lost about 29% of their combined slice, while Grok gave up a smaller fraction of its own. As a result, Grok's weight inside the group rose from roughly 25% of the four-way total in October 2025 to about 28% in September 2026. Grok has become a larger part of a shrinking pie, a sign its audience held firmer than the field around it.

Illustration: Quartz

Microsoft $MSFT's Copilot pulled 157 million visits to its own website in September 2026, enough for a 1.5% slice of chatbot traffic and sixth place among the seven named assistants. Its portion stood at 2.0% in October 2025. The assistant lost half a percentage point between the two readings.

The half-point drop erased one-quarter of Copilot's earlier footprint. Grok surrendered the same 0.5 points from a larger base of 2.8%, a cut of less than one-fifth. Microsoft's product absorbed the heavier proportional blow of the two. Copilot entered the comparison holding the smallest October 2025 share in the group. Each lost tenth of a point bit deeper into so thin a base. Copilot shrank faster than ChatGPT by this yardstick. The leader's steep retreat consumed a smaller fraction of its starting position.

ChatGPT logged about 38 times as many sessions as Copilot, a gulf that shows how far the rest of the field trails the frontrunner. Claude recorded more than six times as many trips as Copilot. Microsoft's chatbot outdrew Perplexity by 63 million, a margin that kept it off the bottom of the table. Grok, the next assistant up, holds a wider lead over Copilot than Copilot holds over Perplexity.

Copilot overtook Perplexity over the period while shedding share of its own. The Microsoft assistant trailed Perplexity in October 2025, and Perplexity's harder fall carried Copilot past its rival by September. Copilot's hold on sixth rests on a competitor's slump as much as on its own pull. The swap demonstrates that a better position in the order can mask a dwindling audience.

Copilot accounted for 0.5 of the 3.3 points the four smaller chatbots gave up together. Its September audience made up a bit less than one-fifth of the visits DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity drew between them. Gemini and Claude alone gained ground among the major players over the same stretch. Every point the smaller field surrendered landed with those two challengers, and Copilot's retreat fed the same migration.

Illustration: Quartz

Perplexity drew 94 million visits in September 2026, a 0.9% slice of chatbot web traffic and 1.6 percentage points below the 2.5% it held in October 2025. None of the other three smallest named rivals lost as much over the same stretch.

Perplexity's skid accounts for nearly half of that quartet's retreat. DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity commanded 11.4% of visits in October 2025 and 8.1% in September 2026, a collective drop of 3.3 points. Perplexity's decline outstripped Grok's and Copilot's losses combined. Each of those two surrendered half a point.

The slump leaves Perplexity with 36% of the portion it owned in October 2025 and the thinnest piece of any named chatbot. Its 94 million visits match the entire "other" line. The unnamed services in the tally, pooled, draw as much traffic as Perplexity on its own. DeepSeek, the biggest of the four laggards, drew 356 million visits, close to four times Perplexity's figure.

Microsoft $MSFT's Copilot trailed Perplexity in October 2025, at 2.0% against 2.5%. Copilot slid to 1.5% by September 2026 yet moved in front. Perplexity's fall ran more than three times as deep as Copilot's, enough to flip the order between the two.

Anthropic's Claude also started below Perplexity, with 2.3% in October 2025. By September 2026, Claude attracted 1,004 million visits, more than 10 times Perplexity's count. The gap between the two chatbots swung from 0.2 points in Perplexity's favor to 8.7 points in Claude's. ChatGPT logged about 63 visits for every one that reached Perplexity in the same month. Gemini's 2,615 million visits came to more than 27 times Perplexity's haul.

The "other" category stayed at 0.9% in both periods. Only Gemini and Claude gained share among the major chatbots over those months. Whatever ground Perplexity gave up had nowhere else to land but with those two climbers.