A new report from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) highlighted that rivals such as Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok, and Meta AI are narrowing the gap with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the consumer AI market. This increased competition is pushing all companies to innovate rapidly, leading to advancements in AI capabilities and features.
The fifth edition of the report analyzes two and a half years of data on consumer AI usage, drawing from third-party sources like Similarweb for web traffic and Sensor Tower for mobile apps.
The report also indicated that 14 companies consistently rank among the top AI products: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, Character AI, Midjourney, Leonardo, Veed, Cutout, ElevenLabs, Photoroom, Gamma, QuillBot, Civitai, and Hugging Face.
These span categories include general assistance, companionship, image and video editing, voice generation, productivity, and model hosting. Besides the 14 companies that have been on the top AI products list in every report from the start, there are five more: Claude, DeepAI, Janitor AI, Pixelcut, and Suno that have shown up in every report except the very first one. These firms cover areas like general AI help, companionship chatbots, image editing tools, and music creation.
Google has made significant inroads, securing four spots in the top generative AI consumer web products for the first time: Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Google Labs, each now tracked via separate domains.
According to reports, Google’s Gemini is now the second most popular AI mobile app, right behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It has about half as many monthly active users as ChatGPT.
However, Gemini is hugely popular on Android phones, where nearly 90% of its users are, thanks to Google’s ownership of the Android system. This shows Gemini is growing fast, but still trails ChatGPT overall.
On the web, it trails ChatGPT with about 12% of its visits. AI Studio entered the top 10 at No. 10, NotebookLM at No. 13, and Google Labs at No. 39. According to reports, Grok has placed 4th on the web and 23rd on mobile, reflecting rapid expansion from no standalone app at the end of 2024 to over 20 million monthly active users.
In July 2025, following the Grok 4 release, its usage surged nearly 40%. Meta AI held at No. 46 on the web but missed the mobile top list, partly due to a controversy over sharing users’ posts publicly without consent.
Chinese AI Tools Gain Global Traction in Latest Rankings
Chinese AI products also featured prominently. Quark (Alibaba) ranked No. 9 on web and 47th on mobile; Doubao (ByteDance) No. 12 on web and 4th on mobile; and Kimi (Moonshot AI) No. 17 on web. The web list exports seven Chinese-developed tools, DeepSeek, Hailuo, Kling, SeaArt, Cutout Pro, Manus, and Monica, globally.
China is the origin of 22 of the top 50 mobile apps, with Meitu’s editing suite and ByteDance’s Douyin, Cici, Gauth, and Hypic leading the way. However, new entrants included vibe-coding startups Lovable and Replit.
Apps nearing the list encompass PixAI, Bolt, Blackbox AI, Clipchamp, and Getliner on the web, and Talkie, Seekee, Photo AI, AI Mirror, and Arvin on mobile. The mobile rankings saw 14 newcomers, aided by app store crackdowns on ChatGPT clones. However, challenges like privacy issues and regulatory scrutiny persist.
This dynamic competition is poised to accelerate AI integration into daily life, fostering breakthroughs in productivity and creativity while raising questions about market consolidation and global standards.
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