ChatGPT Falls Below 50 Percent Market Share for First Time: Claude at 245 Million Users

[SpikeDudley05]

Sensor Tower's 2026 State of AI Report dropped this week and the headline number is that ChatGPT's share of the global AI assistant market fell to 46.4 percent by May 2026, the first time below 50 percent since ChatGPT launched in November 2022. The absolute user numbers still look strong with 1.1 billion monthly active users, but Gemini has climbed to 27.7 percent with 662 million and Claude has jumped to 10.3 percent with 245 million monthly users.

The Claude growth is the most dramatic story in the data. In December 2025 Claude had just 60.2 million monthly users. By May it had 245 million, a roughly fourfold increase in five months. Two factors seem to have driven the shift. OpenAI's 200 million dollar Department of Defense contract in February triggered a major uninstall spike, with ChatGPT uninstalls running about 200 percent above average the week the deal was announced. Separately, Claude's 13 percent paid conversion rate is the highest in the industry, suggesting its users are genuinely engaged rather than casual experimenters.

The irony of this data coming out during the Fable 5 export ban is significant. Claude's growth trajectory has been interrupted by the government action and it remains to be seen whether the momentum survives. Google's Gemini looks like the main structural beneficiary of OpenAI's trust problems, but Claude had been building genuine brand loyalty among developers and power users that goes beyond just switching away from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT's market share slips below 50% for first time | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com