It has been three and a half years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene. Back then, many realized for the first time that chatbots could become the next generation's internet gateway. Today, it has become the fastest-growing app in human history to reach 1 billion monthly active users but has also experienced a significant turning point:

ChatGPT's global market share has dropped below 50% for the first time.

According to data analysis firm Sensor Tower in the "2026 AI Landscape Report," as of the end of May this year, ChatGPT's share in the global AI assistant market has decreased to 46.4%. Prior to January this year, this number was still above 50%. ChatGPT remains the world's largest AI assistant. However, leading no longer equals monopoly.

Ignited by OpenAI, the AI assistant frenzy has progressed from awe, trial, and worship to product comparison, ecosystem binding, revenue conversion, and commercialization.

Loyalty Is a Falsehood; Users Are All "Fickle"

In 2023, having a ChatGPT account carried a certain identity as a participant in the AI wave.

By 2026, AI assistants have increasingly become like search engines, email, and office suites, evolving into internet life's infrastructure. The most notable change in the Sensor Tower report is not just that ChatGPT still ranks first.

More importantly, users are becoming more willing to switch. As long as another assistant is more convenient in a specific scenario, users will immediately allocate their time to another product.

The main competitors that have brought ChatGPT's share below 50% are Gemini and Claude.

As of the end of May, Gemini holds a global share of 27.7%, and Claude holds 10.3%. Products like Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Meta AI, each have less than 5%, but they are also continuously squeezing the remaining market.

The growth of Gemini is not hard to understand. It is backed by Google's entire ecosystem. Search, Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Android are all natural entry points. When AI is embedded in the everyday tools users use, many ordinary users do not need to specifically open another webpage to summon ChatGPT.

Especially after the release of Gemini 3.0, Google also saw its first true milestone victory, officially joining the AI game and entering the view of more mainstream users.

Claude's path, on the other hand, resembles more of a productivity product victory.

It does not have Google's distribution system, but it has formed a strong reputation in scenarios such as writing, coding, long-form text processing, and complex task collaboration. Sensor Tower states that Claude is approaching ChatGPT's user retention levels. For power users, the AI assistant has moved beyond a mere toy attribute, starting to truly impact work efficiency.

A more subtle change is that when users assess AI products, they are no longer just looking at the model's capabilities. Along with AI assistants gradually acquiring personalized interaction features, users also begin discussing work, emotions, judgment, and decision-making with them. Brand trust, values orientation, institutional relationships, all could become part of user choices.

And even a tiny bit of public opinion turmoil can trigger a massive wave of uninstalls. This, I believe, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has deeply experienced in the past year.

In the past, AI companies believed that as long as the model was stronger, users would stay. The reality of 2026 is much more complex. Abilities, ecosystems, prices, scenarios, brand trust are all collectively determining whether an assistant can be continuously used.

The Free Lunch Is Over, AI Applications Are Starting to Talk Money

Beyond market share, another set of data provided in the Sensor Tower report better explains the industry's stage change: AI applications are still growing, but the growth logic has shifted.

Sensor Tower estimates that in the first half of 2026, global AI app downloads are expected to approach 2.3 billion times, with in-app spending exceeding $4.2 billion. In comparison, in the first half of 2025, in-app spending on AI applications was $1.83 billion.

Users Still Downloading AI Apps and Willing to Pay for AI

However, both download numbers and spending growth have slowed down. At the same time, the industry has transitioned from a period of rapid expansion to a more competitive phase.

Companies can't just focus on user growth; they also need to demonstrate their ability to convert traffic into revenue. Regional differences are also becoming apparent. Asia remains the top market for AI app downloads, but in the first quarter of 2026, downloads saw a 3.3% decline, mainly influenced by markets like India.

In contrast, North America and Europe show stronger in-app purchases. For AI companies, the real driver of the business model is often the willingness to pay, as installed base size only solves part of the problem. The trend in the U.S. market is more pronounced. Users are increasingly using AI assistants for productivity tasks and are more willing to pay for advanced features.

Claude stands out here. According to Sensor Tower, Anthropic has a 13% user subscription rate, positioning it at the forefront of the industry in terms of conversion rate. The 13% subscription conversion rate explains why Claude continues to expand its presence amid competition from tech giants.

As long as AI can help users save time, write code, organize documents, and handle complex tasks, monthly subscription fees of $20 to $200 are actually within an acceptable range. ChatGPT's path to monetization is more diverse and controversial. Sensor Tower reports that OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT in February this year and has gradually increased the scale of ad impressions and user coverage.

By May, an average of 17% of users per day are already seeing ads. Software and shopping are currently the largest advertising categories, followed by media and entertainment, and food and beverage.

From subscriptions to ads, ChatGPT is moving towards a more typical internet business model. Early users were familiar with a clean dialogue box, an entry point imagined as a gateway to General Artificial Intelligence (AGI).

Unfortunately, even the smartest AI on the planet cannot escape its fate of becoming a salesperson.

For OpenAI, advertising and shopping have become necessary endeavors. Now, this gateway is also starting to carry ads, shopping guides, recommendations, and transaction conversions.

Model inference, training, and computing power expenditure are extremely expensive, and relying solely on subscription revenue is difficult to cover long-term investment. Advertising and shopping are becoming the next pieces of the puzzle for ChatGPT's commercialization.

As AI begins to penetrate core scenarios such as shopping, office work, and search, the vision of AI becoming a unified super entrance is also encountering increasingly realistic platform boundaries. Sensor Tower estimates that in the first half of 2026, global AI app usage hours will increase from 17.2 billion hours in the same period last year to around 36 billion hours.

Among them, the top three AI assistants account for 89% of the total usage time of AI assistant apps.

Future players still have opportunities, but more opportunities exist in fragmented scenarios, such as AI companions, AI content generation, and vertical industry tools. The main battlefield of general assistants has already been taken by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Saying Goodbye to the Altar, AI Moves to the Everyday

ChatGPT's market share decline occurred at a somewhat ironic time: OpenAI's revenue is still growing rapidly, its user base is expanding, and its capital reserves far exceed those of most startups. According to The Information, documents disclosed to shareholders show that OpenAI burned through $3.7 billion in cash in the first quarter, more than half of its $5.7 billion in revenue.

Both cash burn and revenue doubled compared to the same period last year.

This is also a common challenge facing the current AI industry. User and revenue growth continue, but significant funds are needed to sustain model training, inference services, and infrastructure development.

Moreover, OpenAI is expected to have cash burn reach $25 billion in 2026, further rising to $57 billion in 2027. Even though OpenAI has secretly submitted its IPO filing, the timing of the IPO may still be adjusted according to market conditions.

In other words, as one of the world's strongest AI brands, OpenAI still needs to answer a question: as models become more expensive, competition increases, and users become more prone to switching, how profitable can ChatGPT's business model ultimately be.

However, even as ChatGPT's market share falls below 50%, it remains the world's largest AI assistant and continues to be the most frequently mentioned name when discussing AI externally. However, this milestone is symbolic. The AI assistant market has bid farewell to the era when a single product defined the industry. In the past, ChatGPT was responsible for convincing the public that AI could transform the internet.

Now, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, and various vertical AI assistants are all working together to divide user time, usage scenarios, and commercial revenue.

User demands are also subtly changing.

Today, you are no longer satisfied with just having AI write a poem or tell a joke, but are starting to demand that it write code with fewer errors, handle documents more accurately, make office collaboration more convenient, offer more reasonable subscription prices, and so on.

When a technology no longer amazes people repeatedly but instead is being scrutinized, compared, and replaced, it truly begins to enter the public's life.

ChatGPT may have lost some of its former glory, but AI is truly beginning to conquer the entire world.

In this new world, there are no eternal kings, only us always ready to migrate for a better tool at any time.

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