Claude took 11.5% of visits to generative AI websites in October, its highest share yet in Similarweb’s estimates. The traffic analytics firm’s latest monthly update has ChatGPT at 55.7%, down from 56.4% in September, and Google’s Gemini at 24.2%, down from 25.0%.
Over 12 months the shift is larger. ChatGPT had 69.5% of these visits in November 2025, Gemini 15.9% and Claude 2.1%. Gemini did most of its catching up by April and has drifted down since. Claude has risen in every month Similarweb listed, and October’s 1.9-point jump was bigger than its whole gain from April to September.
| Assistant | Nov 2025 | Apr 2026 | Aug 2026 | Sep 2026 | Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 69.5% | 53.7% | 55.6% | 56.4% | 55.7% |
| Gemini | 15.9% | 26.7% | 25.6% | 25.0% | 24.2% |
| Claude | 2.1% | 8.0% | 9.3% | 9.6% | 11.5% |
| DeepSeek | 4.1% | 4.0% | 3.5% | 3.4% | 3.4% |
| Grok | 3.3% | 3.2% | 2.5% | 2.3% | 2.2% |
| Copilot | 2.0% | 2.0% | 1.6% | 1.5% | 1.1% |
| Perplexity | 2.2% | 1.5% | 0.9% | 0.9% | 0.8% |
The smaller assistants all lost ground. DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot and Perplexity together had 11.6% of visits a year ago and 7.5% in October.
What the numbers measure
These are estimates of website visits, not users. Similarweb builds them from what its methodology page calls a blend of “digital signals”: first-party analytics that sites share with it, a contributory network of consumer products that pass on anonymous device data, partner data and public data, all run through machine learning models. The companies themselves don’t confirm the figures.
Three things follow from that. App use isn’t counted, and most AI use now happens in apps. Similarweb’s own data, published by the research firm Graphite, puts 86% of AI sessions worldwide in apps. A visit isn’t a person, either: someone who opens ChatGPT five times a day counts five times. And the shares only cover the seven assistants in the list, so AI built into other products, such as Google’s AI Mode or Copilot inside Windows and Office, sits outside them.
Other trackers bear that out. Similarweb’s own claude.ai page shows the site’s traffic up 23.78% on September, to about 1.3 billion visits, while its chatgpt.com page shows a 2.15% rise. Both sites grew; Claude grew much faster, which is why ChatGPT’s share fell even as its traffic rose.
What other data shows
Add apps and the picture changes. Each source below measures something different, and none is a full count of users.
- Web and app sessions. Graphite’s State of Gen AI study, built on Similarweb data and published on 9 November, gives ChatGPT 81.2% of web and mobile app sessions across six assistants in September. It says ChatGPT has regained share since June, and its sessions were up 24% on a year earlier. Claude grew fastest, by 1,901%.
- App users. Sensor Tower’s third-quarter estimates, reported by Trending Topics, give ChatGPT 1.4 billion monthly app users and more than 60% of users among seven assistants, against about 26% for Gemini and about 4% for Claude. Claude’s app users grew 1,260% year on year. Sensor Tower also found 73% of Claude users used it only on the web, compared with 26% of ChatGPT users. That’s why Claude looks bigger in web data than in app data.
- Unique users across app and web. Sensor Tower’s State of AI 2026 report said ChatGPT’s “True Audience” share fell below 50% for the first time in March 2026. Coverage of the report put it at 46.4% in May, with Gemini at 27.7% and Claude at 10.3%.
- Pageview share. Statcounter gives ChatGPT 51.58% of AI chatbot share worldwide in October, with Gemini at 28.86%. It ranks Perplexity third at 15.04% and Claude at 2.3%, far from the other trackers, which reflects what it counts: its figures come from sites running its tracking code.
The companies’ own figures are about scale, not share. OpenAI’s Adam Fry told Big Technology this month that ChatGPT has 1.2 billion weekly users, up from 1 billion two months earlier. Alphabet’s third-quarter results said the Gemini app has more than a billion monthly users. Anthropic doesn’t publish a user count.
Where they agree
On direction, the sources line up. Claude is the fastest-growing assistant in every one of them, from a small base. Gemini gained sharply in late 2025 and early 2026 and has since levelled off or slipped. ChatGPT remains the largest by a wide margin on every measure, and it’s still growing in absolute terms. Where they differ is the size of ChatGPT’s lead, and that comes down to whether apps are counted and whether visits or people are measured.
Forbes, reporting on the Graphite study, focused on the recovery:
Similarweb’s October figures, out a day later, show that recovery pausing on the web, with Claude taking the share instead.
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