google and grok are catching up to chatgpt, says a16z’s latest ai report

AI Chatbot Landscape: Competitors Narrow the Gap to ChatGPT

According to a recent report from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, rivals to ChatGPT, such as Google’s Gemini and xAI’s Grok, are steadily reducing the performance disparity. Meta AI is also showing incremental progress, though to a smaller degree.

Report Findings and Key Players

This report, the fifth iteration, analyzes over two and a half years of consumer data regarding the adoption and utilization of AI products. The study identifies 14 companies consistently appearing among the top AI offerings:

• ChatGPT
• Perplexity
• Poe
• Character AI
• Midjourney
• Leonardo
• Veed
• Cutout
• ElevenLabs
• Photoroom
• Gamma
• QuillBot
• Civitai
• Hugging Face

These companies represent the diverse ways consumers are engaging with AI, including general assistance, creative tasks, and model development.

Growth of Google’s AI Offerings

For the first time in this report series, Google secured four positions on the list of leading generative AI consumer web products. These include Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Google Labs. Each now operates under its own domain, enabling independent tracking of their growth.

The data utilized by Andreessen Horowitz is sourced from third-party market intelligence firms, specifically Similarweb for web products and Sensor Tower for mobile app data.

Gemini’s Progress and User Base

The Gemini app is gaining ground on ChatGPT in terms of mobile users, currently possessing almost half as many monthly active users. A significant portion of Gemini’s user base, nearly 90%, utilizes the Android platform. On the web, Gemini’s traffic represents approximately 12% of ChatGPT’s total visits.

Other Notable AI Platforms

Google’s AI Studio, a developer-focused environment for building with Gemini models, has entered the top 10 list of AI web products, ranking tenth. NotebookLM currently holds the thirteenth position. Google Labs, a hub for AI experimentation, is ranked thirty-ninth.

Meta AI and Grok are also actively competing with ChatGPT. Grok has demonstrated rapid expansion, achieving over 20 million monthly active users since its launch on X. A nearly 40% increase in users was observed following the release of Grok 4 in July 2025.

Challenges and Regional Trends

Meta’s general assistant is ranked forty-sixth on the web, but did not appear on the list of top mobile AI applications. Concerns regarding the unintended public sharing of user posts without explicit consent have impacted its adoption.

Growth has plateaued for DeepSeek and Claude on mobile, with DeepSeek experiencing a 22% decline from its peak. A more substantial drop, exceeding 40%, was noted for DeepSeek on the web. Conversely, Perplexity and Claude continue to exhibit growth.

Several Chinese AI developers are gaining prominence, including Quark, Alibaba’s AI assistant, Doubao, Kimi, and others. Approximately 75% of their traffic originates from China. Furthermore, seven additional Chinese companies are exporting their AI technology globally.

Emerging Startups and Future Outlook

Vibe-coding startups Lovable and Replit have recently joined the main list. The report also highlights several AI apps on the verge of breaking into the top rankings, such as PixAI, Bolt, and Blackbox AI.

The mobile app landscape is becoming more diverse, with a record number of newcomers (14) as app stores actively suppress ChatGPT clones and prioritize original applications.