ChatGPT and Gemini both cross the 1 billion user mark
Both OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini have now surpassed 1 billion users, though on different timelines and measured differently, showing how tightly the AI chatbot race has become.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Gemini now has 1 billion monthly users worldwide, calling it on X the company's fastest-growing product ever. It marks the 14th time a Google product has reached the billion-user milestone.
Still, Google wasn't first to the mark among AI companies. OpenAI's ChatGPT passed 1 billion users weeks earlier, though the announcement was quietly tucked into a general blog post about AI usage published on August 6th. External data had suggested ChatGPT crossed the threshold as early as June. OpenAI spokesperson Lindsay McCallum confirmed ChatGPT reached 1 billion weekly active users in July, while it had already surpassed 1 billion monthly users some time before that.
The growth comparison is more complicated than it looks. ChatGPT had 900 million weekly users back in February, meaning the jump to 1 billion over five months represents a notable slowdown for a product once considered the fastest-growing software in history. OpenAI declined to disclose its current monthly user count.
Google's numbers tell a different growth story. Gemini had 750 million monthly users in February, rising to 950 million by its late-July earnings call, before crossing 1 billion last week, according to Google spokesperson Alex Joseph. These figures reportedly refer only to the Gemini app itself, not Gemini's integration into other Google products — but they do include the version preinstalled on Android phones. Gemini lead Josh Woodward noted that Gemini has more than 100 million active users on iOS, implying the vast majority of its users are on Android.
A tightening race
Competition among AI companies has intensified sharply this year. Anthropic's Claude Code became a breakout success, pushing OpenAI to respond with its own Codex tool, while Google has embedded Gemini across nearly all of its products. The leading models have repeatedly leapfrogged one another, and all now face growing competition from Chinese developers. While ChatGPT remains the best-known name in AI chatbots, its once-dominant lead appears to have largely narrowed.
