Business Insider reported on November 9 on a traffic study from Graphite, a research and growth marketing firm. Drawing on Similarweb data, Graphite counted web and app visits to the leading AI services and found that ChatGPT accounts for more than 81% of global traffic to major AI chatbots. No rival tops 10%.
The study was led by Graphite CEO Ethan Smith. In the report, he is quoted as saying:
“The AI market is still expanding rapidly, and ChatGPT remains overwhelmingly dominant.”
Seven months of flat usage, then growth again
According to Graphite's data, after ChatGPT's rapid growth in the first half of 2025, its usage barely moved for roughly seven months before picking up again this year. Monthly visits reached 61.35 billion in September, up almost 20% from the previous month and a record. The report also cites a colleague's article saying ChatGPT has about 1.2 billion weekly active users.
The overall pie is growing too. All major AI services combined drew about 76 billion visits in September, up 37% year over year. Referral traffic that AI services send to other websites rose 92% year over year, with 60% of it coming from ChatGPT. Geographically, the United States accounts for just 8.8% of global AI traffic, so more than 90% of usage happens outside the US.
On competitors, Graphite offered only qualitative remarks: Claude has grown remarkably over the past year, and Gemini is expanding quickly as well. The report does not disclose specific market shares, and it does not say which products were included in the count.
It doesn't match the numbers from six months ago
In June this year, a different set of third-party traffic data pointed to almost the opposite conclusion: ChatGPT's share of global AI chatbot web visits fell from 76.5% a year earlier to 54.7%, while Gemini rose from 5.6% to 27.4%. Five months later, Graphite arrives at more than 81%. Put side by side, the two figures are more than 20 percentage points apart.
From the public information, there are at least three places that could explain the gap. What follows is speculation only, since neither side has published its full methodology:
- What is counted: The June figures covered web visits only, while Graphite also counted app traffic. ChatGPT has a large mobile user base, which would push its share up.
- The denominator: Gemini is built into Google Search, Android and Workspace, so how many visits get counted as “Gemini chat” depends on where the boundary is drawn. The report notes that AI Overviews now appear in 62% of US searches and that AI Mode drove 491 million US web visits in August, but it does not say whether any of that was included in the chatbot share.
- Timing: The two data sets are five months apart, and ChatGPT alone grew almost 20% in September. Shifts in other players' usage over that period would also change the ratios.
The 81% and 54.7% figures do not necessarily contradict each other. They probably answer two different questions: one asks who gets more visits on the web, the other asks who gets more visits across web and apps combined.
Are Chinese products in the count?
Global traffic studies like this offer limited coverage of Chinese AI products. Much of the usage of Doubao, Yuanbao and Qwen happens inside apps and through WeChat entry points, which third-party traffic panels struggle to capture in full. Graphite's report does not say whether DeepSeek and other Chinese products were included, and the coverage does not provide country-level data.
By the reported figures, the US makes up only 8.8% of global AI traffic. Which countries account for the remaining 90-plus percent, and what share each product holds there, is something the study has not broken out so far. OpenAI has not publicly responded to the study.
Sources: Business Insider, CocoLoop, Graphite traffic study; figures checked: ChatGPT traffic share, September visits, total AI service visits and referral traffic growth.