– ChatGPT’s market share fell below 50% for the first time (46.4%), with Gemini (27.7%) and Claude (10.3%) gaining ground.
– Users are increasingly willing to switch assistants based on brand trust and values, not just product quality.
– OpenAI’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense caused a notable surge in app uninstalls.
– Gemini benefits from deep integration into Google products, while Claude is building a reputation for productivity.
– The AI assistant market is showing signs of maturity, with downloads and user spending starting to decline.
The King of AI Assistants Is Losing Its Crown
ChatGPT, which has been the most popular AI assistant worldwide, is starting to lose its traction. According to Sensor Tower’s State of AI Report 2026, cited by TechCrunch, ChatGPT’s market share droped below 50% for the first time, standing at 46.4% at the end of May. In second place is Google’s Gemini with 27.7% share and Anthropic’s Claude with 10.3%. Others like Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek and Meta AI altogether are under 5%.
User Base and Migrating Habits
Sensor Tower estimates that ChatGPT exceeds 1.1 billion monthly users, ahead of Gemini with 662 million, and Claude with 245 million. The report also points out that users are more willing to migrate between different AI assistants based on factors like brand trust. OpenAI’s February partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, for instance, led to a notable surge in app uninstalls — a clear signal that users care about a companies values and who it chooses to work with, not just the quality of its product.
Competitors Gaining Ground
For its part, Gemini is gaining more followers thanks to its integration into several Google products, while Claude is building a solid reputation in productivity tasks. Further more, Sensor Tower estimates that during the first half of 2026, AI applications reached nearly 2.3 billion downloads and more than 4.2 billion dollars in user spending. Nevertheless, the AI assistant market apears to be reaching a stage of maturity, since these figures are now starting to drop. This shift indicates that users are becoming more selective about there tools.
Market Maturity and Consumer Behavior
The decline in downloads and spending suggests that the initial boom might be over, with consumers focusing on quality and ethics rather then novelty. Privacy concerns and geopolitical factors are playing a larger role then ever before in dictating which assistant people choose. While ChatGPT still leads in absolute numbers, its market share erosion shows that no one can afford to be complacent in this space. The future will likely see more segmentation, with each assistant carving out a specific user base. This could be healthy for innovation in the long run.