The AI 'Big Bang' Study 2025 — Ranking the Top 10 Chatbots That Control 58.8% of AI Web Traffic
The AI chatbot market didn’t just grow last year — it exploded.
Like the cosmic Big Bang that transformed nothing into everything, the AI chatbot space has expanded at an extraordinary pace.
From just a few early entrants to a vast and competitive universe, the top performers now dominate billions of interactions every month.
Between August 2024 and July 2025, the top 10 AI chatbots pulled in 55.88 billion visits, accounting for more than half of all AI tool traffic.
But just as stars are born and fade in the cosmos, some chatbots surged into the spotlight while others began to lose their shine.
This master infographic from our AI “Big Bang” Study 2025 maps out the leaders, their gravitational pull on user attention, and the data that tells the story.
Context:
This study builds on our earlier “AI Chatbots vs Search Engines” study, but this time we’ve zoomed in exclusively on chatbots — ranking the top 10 using a stronger, multi-metric methodology.
Instead of looking only at web visits, we scored each chatbot across 8 key indicators spanning:
- Visibility — web traffic share, media citations
- Momentum — year-over-year growth, month-over-month trends, market share shifts
- User Experience — average usage time, app store reviews, app ratings
Key Findings from the Study:
- ChatGPT’s Gravitational Dominance — 46.59B visits, controlling 48.36% of all AI tool traffic. Grew 106% YoY, with usage surging to 5B visits/month in the latest quarter.
- Grok’s Meteoric Rise — From just 51K visits to 686.9M visits in a year (+13,434,08% YoY), fueled by deep integration into X (formerly Twitter) and heavy media coverage.
- Gemini’s Rapid Orbit Expansion — +156% YoY growth to 1.66B visits, doubling its monthly traffic in the last quarter. Now positioned as ChatGPT’s strongest challenger, though still 28x smaller.
- Claude’s Deep Engagement — While smaller in traffic (1.15B visits), it leads in usage time at 16:44 minutes per session, showing strong user loyalty.
- DeepSeek’s Supernova Peak & Collapse — Peaked at 520.2M visits in Feb 2025, but declined 39.5% to 314.6M by July. Its fall mirrors a sharp drop in media coverage after February
- Market Concentration — Together, the top 10 chatbots own 58.8% of all AI web traffic out of a market of 10,500+ AI tools, showing a consolidating ecosystem.
Why It Matters:
The AI “Big Bang” metaphor isn’t just about growth — it’s about transformation. A few years ago, the AI chatbot market was a small constellation of niche tools.
Now, it’s an interconnected galaxy where a handful of platforms hold most of the mass, shaping how billions of people interact with AI daily.
This rapid shift has big implications for:
Businesses — spotting where user attention is moving
Marketers — adapting to AI-first discovery and engagement
Researchers & Analysts — tracking market leaders and disruptors
Everyday Users — finding the most reliable chatbot options
This is the first release from our AI “Big Bang” Study 2025, which features 20+ visuals, trend charts, and market insights.
Explore the full study for deeper context, complete rankings, and all the data behind the explosion of the AI chatbot market.