ChatGPT’s early lead among individual users appears to be shrinking as rivals like Google’s Gemini close in on its app and web market share—a shift that could complicate creator OpenAI’s reported plans for an IPO later this year.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT app market share fell from 69.1% in January 2025 to 45.3% in 2026, according to data from mobile intelligence data provider Apptopia, first reported by Big Technology. Over the same period, Apptopia data shows Google’s Gemini chatbot app increased its market share from 14.7% to 25.2%. Elon Musk’s Grok has also been growing rapidly, hitting its highest market share yet at 15.2%—up from 1.6% at the same time last year, according to the data.

It’s not just OpenAI’s app market share that has taken a hit; rivals have been gaining in terms of web traffic, too. According to web traffic data from Similarweb, Gemini’s main web landing page, Gemini.google.com, narrowed the gap significantly with ChatGPT.com in December 2025, with 28.38% more traffic, while ChatGPT’s traffic declined 5.59%. Preliminary data shows Gemini surpassed 2 billion monthly visits for the first time in January 2026, while ChatGPT rebounded after two consecutive months of decline, though it remains below its October 2025 peak.

On Wednesday, during Google parent Alphabet’s fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai also announced that Gemini had surpassed 750 million monthly active users—up from 650 million from the previous quarter. While ChatGPT still likely maintains a lead with an estimated 810 million monthly active users reported in late 2025, the gap is narrowing rapidly.

During the call, Pichai said the launch of Gemini 3, the company’s most advanced model, was a “positive driver” for growth. The launch was accompanied by the viral success of Nano Banana Pro, Google’s AI image generator, which captured public attention with its hyperrealistic creations. The competitive pressure on OpenAI has become so acute that CEO Sam Altman declared an eight-week “code red” in December, urging employees to refocus on core products.

While the app and web traffic figures reveal important trends in consumer adoption, they tell only part of the story when it comes to the broader AI market. While some of the app usage may be people using the bots for work tasks, either in authorized ways or as “shadow AI,” they may also be using these apps for personal tasks. The data doesn’t capture API usage, which is the preferred method for enterprise integration of AI tools.

On the enterprise front, Anthropic has been showing significant momentum. According to survey data from Menlo Ventures, an Anthropic investor, the AI lab holds about a third of the enterprise market, compared with 25% for OpenAI and about 20% for Google Gemini.

The trends paint a picture of an increasingly competitive AI landscape with OpenAI facing challenges on multiple fronts: losing consumer market share to Google’s Gemini; contending with Anthropic’s enterprise momentum; and navigating fast-growing competitors like Grok. If ChatGPT’s consumer market share continues to drop, that could complicate OpenAI’s potential IPO plans—especially if Anthropic, which is reportedly considering going public, manages to do so ahead of OpenAI.

Apptopia’s data also found that one in five AI users now uses multiple apps, suggesting users might be finding different tools useful for various tasks—opening up the possibility of a market where AI companies can carve out a niche. For example, while Claude trails rivals in total app users, it dominates in engagement. In January, the average time spent per daily user was the highest at 34.7 minutes, ticking down only slightly from a similarly strong December performance.

“ChatGPT built the category, but as viable alternatives have scaled, users are naturally diversifying their toolkit,” said Tom Grant, VP of research at Apptopia. “The market could end up looking like streaming, where a few major players own the market, but multiple players can carve out niches based on product differentiation rather than pure network effects.”