Overview
- Sensor Tower’s State of AI report shows that by the end of May 2026 ChatGPT’s global share dropped to about 46.4 percent even as it kept roughly 1.1 billion monthly users while Google’s Gemini reached about 27.7 percent and Anthropic’s Claude about 10.3 percent.
- User switching rose sharply after OpenAI’s February agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense, with Sensor Tower finding a measurable spike in ChatGPT uninstalls in March that helped drive short‑term gains for Claude.
- Monetization is becoming a key battleground: Claude leads on paid conversion with about 13 percent of users subscribing and a U.S. mobile ARPU near $2.76, while OpenAI has rolled out ads to roughly 17 percent of daily ChatGPT users.
- Distribution and integrations are shaping growth patterns as Gemini benefits from Google’s Search, Android and Workspace reach and Grok gains a niche audience through embedding inside X.
- Overall engagement and spending are surging even as the market concentrates at the top — global time spent on generative AI apps roughly doubled to about 36 billion hours in H1 2026 and consumer in‑app spending topped $4 billion, a shift that raises revenue, retention and regulatory metrics investors will watch next.