Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways ChatGPT is number one by a wide margin. AI search services like Perplexity are nibbling at Google's dominance. History tells us ChatGPT's lead is far from insurmountable. It won't come as any surprise to you that OpenAI's ChatGPT is easily the most popular of all the AI chatbots. All four of the main sites tracking chatbots -- Comscore, OneLittleWeb, Statcounter, and TechGaged -- agree on that, but here's what a closer look revealed. Comscore Comscore collects its AI chatbot report data using a combination of proprietary measurement assets, including desktop and mobile meters, and its opt-in Total Home panel. These systems track site visitation metrics for tools across both PC and mobile platforms, providing real-world usage statistics based on observed consumer behavior rather than simple downloads or self-reported surveys. Armed with this information, Comscore found that there has been a pronounced shift in chatbot use from desktop to mobile platforms. Comscore's latest reporting, tracking 117 AI tools across both PC and mobile platforms, reveals that mobile reach for AI assistants increased by 5.3% over the last three months, rising from 69.7 million to 73.4 million unique users. Also: ChatGPT Pulse works overnight to produce personalized morning updates for you - how to try it By contrast, desktop usage of these tools dropped sharply by 11.1% in the same period. From November 2024 to June 2025, mobile adoption of AI assistants surged by 82%, significantly narrowing the gap with desktop. The top brands saw dramatic growth in the mobile market: Microsoft Copilot usage on mobile jumped 175%, Google Gemini rose 68%, and ChatGPT increased 17.9%. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Why? Smriti Sharma, Comscore's SVP of Custom IQ, told ZDNET, "Copilot's mobile growth comes mainly from Microsoft's ecosystem integration and productivity use cases. The emphasis from Microsoft on its mobile-first approach fits well with lightweight productivity tasks." Also: The fastest growing AI chatbot lately? It's not ChatGPT or Gemini In addition, Sharma said, "Leading brands are positioning AI assistants as personal, always-available companions, and users are responding." Since Google and Microsoft are embedding AI assistants directly into mobile operating systems and popular apps (e.g., Google Gemini on Pixels and Copilot inside Office mobile apps). The result? Google and Microsoft's smartphone AI chatbots are booming. However, Comscore, unlike the others, pointed out that the end-user AI market is far more than just chatbots. By its count, after ChatGPT and Copilot, the most popular AI programs are the AI design assistant Canva, followed by writing and editing helper Grammarly, the AI marketing platform Octane AI, and AI voice changer Voicemod. Statcounter Statcounter collects its AI chatbot market share data using web analytics tracking installed on over 1.5 million websites worldwide. Its methodology analyzes more than 5 billion monthly page views from these diverse sites. For each page view, Statcounter's tracking code detects how visitors interact with chatbots, such as referrals from AI platforms to external websites. Also: How people actually use ChatGPT vs Claude - and what the differences tell us Statcounter focuses purely on chatbots. By its count for the last three months, ChatGPT has remained the clear leader in global market share with 80.92% of worldwide chatbot usage. This extraordinary dominance highlights ChatGPT's position as the top destination for end users seeking conversational AI solutions. Perplexity, at 8.08%, has carved a niche by blending AI conversation with live internet search. Thus, it caters to users hunting up-to-the-minute answers rather than relying solely on static pre-trained data. Microsoft's Copilot, sitting at 5.19%, benefits from deep integration within Office 365 apps, making it a natural choice for productivity-minded users. DeepSeek, 2.75%, and Google Gemini, 2.19%, reveal how differentiated strategies -- whether through ecosystem integration or new functionalities -- can help newcomers gain traction. Claude, although small, has built its identity around conversational safety and trust, which may resonate in the regulatory climate ahead. OneLittleWeb Thinking of search, another research company, OneLittleWeb, did a deep dive into AI chatbots and search. Its methodology involved compiling data by aggregating and analyzing publicly available web traffic and usage statistics from several trusted third-party sources. These include analytics platforms such as Semrush, web catalog sites like aitools.xyz, media databases like MuckRack, and app stores for download and user ratings data. Also: 10 ChatGPT Codex secrets I only learned after 60 hours of pair programming with it OneLittleWeb found that when people are seeking answers, ""=""> reflex and instead use AI chatbots. Search engines, such as Google, are starting to see a slight year-over-year decline of 0.51%. True, that's not much, but AI chatbot traffic jumped up with a year-over-year growth of 80.92%. Even with that, Google remains the undisputed leader with 87.57% market share, followed by Microsoft Bing and Yandex. AI-first search? It came in at only 2.69%. But it's a harbinger of the future. Still, for today, despite ChatGPT's massive growth and high engagement, it receives approximately 26 times less daily traffic than Google. No one at the Googleplex is going to be losing sleep about AI-first search bots giving Google a run for its money anytime soon. Also: I built a business plan with ChatGPT and it turned into a cautionary tale In the AI search chatbot space, ChatGPT is the undisputed leader with 86.32%. It's followed by DeepSeek with 3.15%; Gemini, 3.06%; Perplexity, 2.42%; Claude, 2.10%; and Copilot, 1.67%. It's not a runaway yet, though, by OneLittleWeb's analysis. The firm found that smaller players such as DeepSeek, Gemini, and Perplexity are experiencing notable growth, with DeepSeek showcasing an astonishing 113,007% increase in traffic. TechGaged Like OneLittleWeb, TechGaged gathers its AI chatbot market report data by analyzing global web traffic statistics, industry datasets, and direct measurements of user interactions from third-party analytics companies and widely cited data aggregators, including Statcounter, Similarweb, and Semrush. According to its analysis, the global AI chatbot landscape has been consolidating around ChatGPT over the last three months. It sees ChatGPT mirroring what Google once did for search and YouTube for online video: Total market dominance. Also: How ChatGPT actually works (and why it's been so game-changing) That said, despite ChatGPT's towering lead, the competitive field is far from empty. Perplexity holds a strong second position thanks to its hybrid approach of combining conversational AI with live web search. Microsoft Copilot is third thanks to its deep integration within the Microsoft 365 suite, while DeepSeek has leveraged product innovation and differentiation to create a meaningful, if smaller, presence in the market. Gemini follows, thanks to its Google and Android ecosystem ties. Also: Is ChatGPT Plus still worth $20 when the free version offers so much - including GPT-5? These alternatives prove the market is dynamic, with strong signals that demand exists for differentiated AI experiences. Perplexity's real-time data approach, Copilot's productivity integrations, DeepSeek's innovation, and Gemini's ecosystem reach all serve as footholds for disruption. Where the AI chatbot market goes from here Yes, right now ChatGPT has a commanding lead. But we're still very early in the AI game. The major ChatGPT release, which started the AI revolution, didn't come until November 2022. That's not even three years ago. Also: ChatGPT just got a new personalization hub. Not everyone is happy about it Three years after the web took off, the top web browser was Netscape Navigator, which held approximately 88-89% of the market at that time. Friendster, launched in 2002, followed by MySpace in 2003, brought social networking into the mainstream. In 2006, MySpace, with 100 million users, was the top social network. Notice something? All those sites are gone now. Three years is not enough time to declare a popular technology winner. The top AI chatbot is probably already out there, but it's hardly time to declare ChatGPT the winner. Stay tuned. We're just at the beginning of the AI chatbot revolution.