Have you ever wondered why ChatGPT has become so popular and why it dominates the AI market? Let's get this straight, because the numbers are amazing. According to the latest data from Similarweb, ChatGPT gained 5.5 billion visits in May 2025, accounting for 80% of all traffic in the generative AI market. This is more than all other AI models such as Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity and Claude combined! Can you imagine the gap? It's not just a victory, it's absolute dominance.
The secret of ChatGPT success
An important point: when it comes to leaders in the AI market, many people first think about the technical characteristics and compare models according to these parameters. But ChatGPT has benefited not only from technological innovations. The main secret of its success is that it turned out to be exactly what users needed. In 2025, the number of active ChatGPT users exceeded 500 million per week, and the mobile application was used by more than 250 million people every month.
OpenAI was able to achieve this through a partnership with Microsoft, but that's not the only reason. ChatGPT has become, in fact, the first universal AI assistant for millions of people around the world. And this success was no accident: despite a short-term drop in traffic in early 2025, ChatGPT recovered quickly and continued to grow.
The Chinese DeepSeek phenomenon
However, not everything is so clear in the AI market. While OpenAI has taken almost all of the users' attention, the Chinese startup DeepSeek has become a real sensation. In May 2025, the DeepSeek model showed a 13-fold increase in the number of users, increasing the number of visits from 33.7 million in January to 436 million in May.
Interestingly, DeepSeek works with cheaper Nvidia H800 chips (lower in power), and its tokens cost only $0.55, as opposed to $15 for an OpenAI token. This allows the Chinese startup to compete fiercely with Western companies, despite all the economic and political restrictions. And most importantly, DeepSeek is actively conquering markets that are practically untouched by Western IT companies, such as China, India and Indonesia.
Why Google and Anthropic are lagging behind
But Google, with its Gemini model, looks pretty mediocre compared to the competition. Despite the enormous resources and billions of dollars that Google is investing in AI, the Gemini model has gained only 527.7 million visits per month. That's not a lot, especially considering that Google processes 3.5 billion search queries per day and has access to a huge audience.
Unfortunately, from a technical point of view, Gemini looks very strong, but this is not enough to win the race for users. Claude, the model from Anthropic, also looks extremely interesting from the point of view of technology, but it could not achieve mass distribution. In May 2025, Claude had only about 100 million visits, which is modest, especially when compared with ChatGPT.
Why can't competitors catch up with ChatGPT?
So what happens to the rest of the models? Why can't they catch up with ChatGPT, even if they are technically superior to it? The answer is simple: users choose what works simply and efficiently. All these additional features, tests, and complex algorithms are, of course, interesting for AI researchers, but for ordinary users it is important that the AI model is convenient and useful in everyday life.
ChatGPT became an ideal tool that helped solve realโworld tasks, from helping with studies to code generation or just having conversations. Other models tried to keep up with their competitors in terms of "technical coolness", but missed an important point: what is important for users is convenience and accessibility.
AI is changing the industry
This trend is already starting to change the market where traditional Internet companies operate. For example, Chegg (homework help site) lost 64% of traffic because students started using ChatGPT, which solves homework much faster and more efficiently. Platforms like Quora and Fiverr have also lost significant numbers of users.
But tools for automation and software development, such as DevOps and code generation, on the contrary, have become much more in demand. This confirms that AI is changing not only the entertainment industry, but also the work of professionals.
Conclusion: ChatGPT is already on a pedestal
So, OpenAI has won this race. Of course, other players in the AI market have not disappeared, and they can still surprise us with new achievements, but ChatGPT has taken a leading position because it turned out to be exactly the product that users need. He was the first to come up with a solution for realโworld problems- and it earned him billions of visits.
Now the real fight will be for the second place. Who will be able to reach the podium after ChatGPT? DeepSeek? Google? Or someone else? What do you think it takes to overtake ChatGPT in the current environment?
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