What’s happening? The AI chatbot race just got a shake-up. Fresh data shows that ChatGPT, once growing at tremendous speed, is finally hitting a plateau, while Google’s Gemini is picking up momentum quickly. According to Sensor Tower data, Gemini’s user base grew by 30% between August and November, at the same time ChatGPT barely moved.
- ChatGPT still holds a strong lead overall, reaching around 810 million monthly active users, but its growth in that same period (Aug–Nov) was only 6%, signaling a slowdown.
- ChatGPT leads with 55% market share, but it dropped 3 percentage points, while Gemini gained 3.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
This is important because: Gemini isn’t just riding hype. One of the biggest drivers of its acceleration is its viral tool called Nano Banana, a visual model that caught attention for its fast image generation. Some might see it as a gimmick, but the numbers suggest it worked well. Recent comparisons between Gemini and ChatGPT also show how the AI landscape is shifting.
Gemini and Perplexity also showed the most explosive year-over-year growth of the entire AI field, up by 190% and 215%, respectively. That puts them right on ChatGPT’s heels after a year of experimentation by users who once leaned almost entirely toward OpenAI.
Who’s winning user attention? Market share is one angle, but time spent inside the apps shows a different story. Gemini users now average 11 minutes per day, up by 120% since March. ChatGPT users, meanwhile, only increased their time by 6% and usage even fell by 10% between July and November. This means that people still use ChatGPT more overall, but Gemini users seem more hooked once they try it.
OK, what’s next? For now, ChatGPT is still the biggest name in AI assistants. But Gemini has something every competitor wants and that is momentum. If the trend continues, we may be heading into a very different AI landscape in 2026, one where leaders can’t rely on early dominance alone.
