Summary
- By the end of May, ChatGPT held a 46% market share in the AI assistant space, as reported in Sensor Tower's State of AI 2026.
- Google's Gemini has reached a 28% share, while Claude has climbed to 10%.
- Users of Grok are approximately four times more likely to be involved in cryptocurrency trading compared to the general audience, marking the most significant disparity recorded by Sensor Tower for any assistant, surpassing Claude, Copilot, and ChatGPT.
For three years, ChatGPT enjoyed a unique position in technology, as it became synonymous with generative AI. People often said they were "using ChatGPT" much like they would say they were Googling something.
However, it appears that ChatGPT's peak popularity in 2023 may be waning.
According to Sensor Tower's latest State of AI 2026 report, ChatGPT's market share dipped below the 50% mark for the first time in March 2026, finishing May at 46%, with Google Gemini at 28% and Claude at 10%.
This decline does not indicate that ChatGPT is failing. In May, the application surpassed 1 billion monthly users, making it the fastest app ever to reach this milestone, outpacing TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. OpenAI is currently steering ChatGPT towards becoming a superapp that combines shopping and various agents, coinciding with an IPO process that has already started.
What is diminishing is ChatGPT's status as the only widely recognized AI application. A report from Decrypt in May indicated that ChatGPT's share of web traffic had dropped from 77.6% to 53.7% over the course of a year. Sensor Tower's findings confirm that it has now entered a minority position.
As more alternatives emerge, consumers are becoming increasingly indifferent to brand names.
The growth of Gemini can largely be attributed to its distribution strategy, which varies based on the source. Google informed investors that Gemini achieved 750 million monthly users in February, later announcing over 900 million at its developer conference in May. However, Sensor Tower's independent tracking, which focuses solely on Gemini's app and website, recorded 662 million users for the same month.
Regardless of the numbers, they reflect a similar trend. ChatGPT's declining influence is not due to inferior performance but rather because distribution and default settings have become more critical than mere capabilities—Gemini's integration with Android, Search, Chrome, and Workspace provides it with an edge that performance metrics cannot fully capture.
Claude's share in the U.S. nearly tripled, rising from 5% in December to 14% in May, and this surge can be traced back to specific events. In late February, Anthropic resisted Pentagon requests to eliminate safeguards against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, leading the Department of Defense (now called the Department of War) to label the company as a supply chain risk. Shortly thereafter, OpenAI finalized its own agreement with the same department.
Sensor Tower observed a significant increase in ChatGPT uninstalls in the U.S., spiking approximately 200% above average during the week of March 9. For five consecutive days that month, Claude outperformed ChatGPT in downloads before ChatGPT regained its lead, indicating that brand trust is also a crucial factor.
Crypto Traders Favor Grok Over Competitors
One notable insight from the user-persona data is that Grok users are roughly four times more likely to engage in crypto trading compared to the general population, marking the largest disparity recorded by Sensor Tower among any assistant.
Interestingly, ChatGPT seems to have less appeal among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, with Claude in second place, while ChatGPT users are only slightly above the general population baseline.
Grok's advantage stems from its integration within X, where it is included for free with Premium subscriptions and can access live posts as soon as a meme coin starts trending—an edge that no standalone chatbot offers.
The structural advantages reinforce each other—Grok is embedded in X's ecosystem, where crypto traders already gather, allowing it to tap directly into real-time sentiment and meme coin discussions. Elon Musk's personal interest in cryptocurrency also influences the platform's culture, and the user base leans towards those already familiar with crypto Twitter dynamics. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle that naturally directs Grok towards crypto-focused responses.
Moreover, Grok offers a comparable experience to ChatGPT in various contexts, including a chat interface, coding capabilities, and generative content like images and videos, which ChatGPT does not provide.
Claude's second-place standing aligns with the results from last fall's Alpha Arena competition, where Grok and Claude Sonnet achieved real-money trading gains on the Hyperliquid exchange, while GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 Pro each lost over 25% of their investment. Crypto Twitter tends to remember who has generated profits, which may explain their preferences for chatbots.
The financial metrics support the user statistics as well. Claude's average revenue per U.S. mobile user surged from under $0.50 last September to $2.76 in May, surpassing ChatGPT's $1.74. Additionally, 13% of Claude's users have opted for a subscription, representing the highest conversion rate in the report. OpenAI is heading towards an IPO with the largest audience in AI history but is facing a diminishing grip on what that audience actually prefers.