ChatGPT and Gemini have both crossed the 1 billion user milestone, marking the official entry of AI chat tools into the era of super large-scale platforms. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on the X platform that Gemini's monthly active users have exceeded 1 billion, becoming the fastest-growing product in Google's history. OpenAI, however, has been much more low-key, hiding the news that "over 1 billion people are using ChatGPT" in a blog post about AI usage methods. External data shows that ChatGPT had already surpassed 1 billion monthly active users by June, and reached 1 billion weekly active users in July.
However, the story behind the growth curve is not simple. OpenAI announced in February that ChatGPT's weekly active users were 900 million, and it took five months to reach 1 billion, showing a noticeable slowdown compared to its previous image as "the fastest-growing software in history." Gemini's growth, on the other hand, has been steeper—its monthly active users were 750 million in February, and during the July earnings call, it was revealed to be 950 million. Last week, it officially crossed the 1 billion mark, showing strong momentum.
The Competitive Landscape Is Tightening Rapidly
Gemini's 1 billion user data only counts users of the Gemini app itself, not including usage within other Google products. However, the pre-installed Gemini on Android phones is included. Josh Woodward, head of Gemini, revealed that the iOS active users exceed 100 million, meaning that the majority of Gemini users come from the advantage of being pre-installed on Android devices. This also explains why OpenAI is eager to develop its own hardware devices.
Anthropic's Claude is growing rapidly but is still in the tens of millions scale, and the company has not disclosed user data publicly. The AI competition landscape has significantly tightened this year: the popularity of Claude Code forced OpenAI to launch Codex in response, while Google has integrated Gemini into almost all its product lines. Chinese manufacturers' models are also rapidly rising. ChatGPT was once the synonym for AI chatbots, but its once-dominant lead has now significantly narrowed. The battle over 1 billion users has ended, and the next stage of competition will focus on how to get these 1 billion people to do more things and how to monetize them.
