# The AI Chatbot Gaining the Most Market Share in Every Country Google Gemini is the biggest riser in 143 countries. ChatGPT still leads almost everywhere, while its share of AI-chatbot referral traffic has fallen in 87% of countries as people spread their usage across more assistants. A full year of StatCounter data, mapped by Searchable. --- ## Key Findings - The AI chatbot gaining the most market share is **Google Gemini**: the biggest riser in **143 of the 179 countries** we could reliably score, more than every other assistant combined. - **ChatGPT remains number one in 192 of 197 countries (97%)**, while its share of referrals fell in 87% of them over the year. - ChatGPT's average country share slipped from about **78% to 71%**. Its own user numbers grew over the same period, so the total pool of AI referrals expanded faster than ChatGPT's portion of it. - **Gemini is the settled number two**, with a foothold (>=5% share) in **169 countries**, far ahead of Claude, Perplexity and Copilot. It is the runner-up to ChatGPT in 124 countries. - **The AI audience is diversifying.** A year ago one assistant took roughly four in five AI referrals in the average country. Today it takes closer to seven in ten. - Throughout, "market share" means **share of AI-chatbot referral traffic** to the open web, not revenue, valuation or subscriber numbers. --- ## Methodology - **Source.** StatCounter Global Stats (gs.statcounter.com), "AI Chatbot" category, per country. Referrals are detected from the HTTP referrer header on page views to sites in StatCounter's tracking panel. - **Window.** Two-month averages a year apart: mean(May, June 2025) against mean(May, June 2026). A season-matched 12-month comparison using only fully-complete months. April 2025 is excluded because Microsoft Copilot was not fully tracked in the category until May 2025, and the partial July 2026 is excluded because it was still accumulating. - **Metric.** Percentage-point change in referral share. Relative growth was avoided because it flatters tiny-base models: on that measure 0.2% to 2% would outrank an assistant that captured ten times more actual share. - **Coverage.** 197 countries with data, 179 scoreable. - **Exclusions.** China is excluded from every figure (VPN distortion). 18 countries whose month-over-month ChatGPT volatility exceeds 15 points are flagged low-sample and shown on the map without being credited with a winner. The named country-level rankings apply a stricter bar still: a five-million population floor, plus the removal of six markets where VPN use or internet blackouts distort readings (China, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Libya). That leaves 165 markets. The bar is higher there than on the map because naming a country in a ranking makes a stronger claim than shading it. - **Robustness.** The headline holds across every window tested: Gemini leads the gain leaderboard on an April-2025 baseline (104 countries), a three-month window to March 2026 (141), a three-month window to July 2026 (147), and the final two-month year-over-year window (143). - **Known limitations.** Referral share should not be read as usage share. The panel is self-selected and unweighted by StatCounter's stated policy. Grok is absent from the dataset. AI browsers report as Chrome, and in-app browsers frequently strip referrers. Assistants that answer in-app, and use inside enterprise accounts, are systematically under-represented. Copilot's May 2025 entry into the category means the baseline sits at the edge of a tracking change, which biases the measured ChatGPT shift towards zero and makes it a conservative floor. ### What the metric does and does not capture StatCounter counts referrals rather than users: when someone clicks from an AI chatbot to a site carrying its tracker, the referring chatbot is recorded. So "71% share" means 71% of the AI-chatbot traffic arriving at those sites. 1. The measure is **zero-sum**, so a falling share can simply mean rivals grew faster. 2. It **under-counts assistants that answer in-app** instead of sending people onward. 3. It leans towards **consumer browsing**. A growing share of AI use runs through enterprise and workplace accounts (ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini in Google Workspace, Copilot in Microsoft 365), where answers tend to stay inside the app and rarely show up as an outbound referral. A view weighted towards those paid seats could look quite different. --- ## Challenger Depth: Countries Above 5% and 10% Share | Assistant | Countries with >=5% share | Countries with >=10% share | |---|---|---| | Google Gemini | 169 | 96 | | Microsoft Copilot | 123 | 59 | | Perplexity | 70 | 11 | | Claude | 41 | 4 | - Gemini clears 5% in 169 countries and 10% in 96, well ahead of any rival at the deeper threshold, and is the runner-up to ChatGPT in 124 countries. - Claude has climbed quickly from a tiny base and now sits above 5% in 41 countries, though its adoption remains wide and shallow, clearing 10% in only four. ### Why Gemini Two things Google ships should be separated. On the search side, AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted as Google Search, not Gemini, so they do not lift the Gemini line at all. What StatCounter records as Gemini is the standalone assistant, and over this year Google changed how people reach it: - Gemini was built into Chrome as a persistent sidebar in the world's most-used browser, reaching general availability in October 2025 and then more than fifty countries. A browser-based assistant sends people out to the open web in a way an in-app chatbot does not. - Google began replacing Google Assistant with Gemini across Android, default on the Pixel 10 and rolling into Wear OS, Android Auto and Google Home. That fits the pattern in the numbers, where Gemini's share runs highest in high-Android Asian markets: **19% in Taiwan, 17% in South Korea, 16% in Japan**. This is timing rather than proven cause, but it points to distribution rather than simply Google's size. --- ## Average Share of AI-Chatbot Referrals (May-Jun 2026) | Assistant | Average share of AI-chatbot referrals | |---|---| | ChatGPT | ~71% | | Google Gemini | ~11% | | Microsoft Copilot | ~10% | | Perplexity | ~5% | | Claude | ~3% | | DeepSeek | ~0.1% | - ChatGPT remains the most-used AI chatbot in 192 of 197 countries and takes an average of 71% of AI-chatbot referrals where it leads. - The average country's ChatGPT share slipped from about 78% to 71% over the year, falling in 172 of 197 countries (87%). - A falling share does not mean fewer people are using ChatGPT. Over the same period OpenAI's reported user numbers rose. The pool of AI referrals is growing, and ChatGPT's portion of that growing pool is getting smaller. - Among major markets the change is largest in Australia, Italy, Japan and South Korea (around 15 to 17 points), runs 10 to 13 points across the US, Canada, Germany, France and the UK, and barely moves in India (about three points). --- ## Regional Shifts (Average Percentage-Point Change, May-Jun 2025 to May-Jun 2026) | Region | ChatGPT (year) | Gemini | Next-biggest riser | |---|---|---|---| | Middle East & North Africa | -12.8 | +12.2 | Claude +2.6 | | North America | -12.4 | +8.6 | Claude +5.2 | | Eastern Europe & Central Asia | -10.8 | +10.8 | Claude +3.6 | | Western Europe | -9.4 | +5.5 | Claude +4.5 | | Asia-Pacific | -8.7 | +10.6 | Claude +2.4 | | Sub-Saharan Africa | -8.5 | +8.4 | Claude +2.7 | | Latin America & Caribbean | -5.9 | +8.3 | Claude +2.4 | Regional takeaways: - The shift is broad, averaging 6 to 13 points everywhere, largest in the Middle East and North America and gentlest in Latin America. - Gemini's rise is universal and peaks in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, at around +11 to +12 points. - The race for second place has consolidated: Claude is now the number-two riser in all seven regions, while Microsoft Copilot is the second-biggest riser in none of them. - United States: -11.7 points over the year, from 77% to 66%. - United Kingdom: -10.1 points over the year, from 78% to 68%. --- ## Country-Level Extremes These tables use a tighter filter than the map: only countries with at least five million people, dropping six markets where heavy VPN use or documented internet blackouts make readings unreliable (China, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya). That leaves **165 large, open-internet markets**, in which ChatGPT's share **fell in 159 and rose in just 6**. ### Largest Falls in Share (ChatGPT share, May-Jun 2025 to May-Jun 2026) | Country | ChatGPT share | Change (pts) | |---|---|---| | Benin | 89% to 61% | -28.0 | | Burkina Faso | 80% to 53% | -26.6 | | Ukraine | 91% to 67% | -24.3 | | Niger | 80% to 56% | -23.1 | | Taiwan | 86% to 63% | -22.6 | | Tunisia | 91% to 69% | -22.0 | - The steepest drops share a common feature: ChatGPT began the year almost unchallenged, often above 85% or 90%, so those markets had the furthest to fall as people tried other assistants. - Across the 165 markets, the higher a country's starting share, the larger its fall tended to be. - West African markets sit at the top for that reason, alongside Ukraine (-24.3), Taiwan (-22.6), Tunisia (-22.0) and Israel (-20.3), which all began the year with ChatGPT well above 85%. ### The Rare Rises (only 6 markets) | Country | ChatGPT share | Change (pts) | |---|---|---| | Indonesia | 75% to 82% | +7.1 | | Tanzania | 74% to 81% | +6.8 | | Venezuela | 5% to 10% | +5.8 | | Rwanda | 74% to 77% | +3.7 | - The largest is Indonesia, up 7.1 points from an already high 75%, one of the few big markets where ChatGPT gained rather than lost ground over the year. - Tanzania and Rwanda moved in the same direction on a smaller scale. - Venezuela's rise runs from a low base, 5% to 10%, in a market where Gemini leads. --- ## DeepSeek: Extensive Coverage, Almost No Referrals DeepSeek is where referral share and real usage part company. In referral terms it barely registers: outside China it clears 1% share in only one country and 5% in none, and its worldwide referral share has fallen over the year. That does not mean it is little used. DeepSeek has reported user numbers in the hundreds of millions, and independent web-traffic estimates place the majority of its traffic outside China. The gap between those two facts is explained by how it is used: DeepSeek is app-heavy and tends to answer in full rather than send people onward, so it generates substantial usage and very few outbound referrals. --- ## What This Means for Brands - The AI chatbot audience is fragmenting even as it grows. A year ago, being visible in ChatGPT was a fair proxy for being visible in AI. Today a quarter to a third of AI referrals in most Western markets come from elsewhere, and that proportion is climbing. - These engines do not cite the same sources. Searchable analysed the **2.6 million** web domains that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews each cited regularly over the last 90 days: - Only about one in six (**17%**) were cited by all three engines. - Nearly two-thirds (**64%**) were cited by just a single engine. - Being a source one AI trusts is no guarantee of being visible in the others. Optimising an AEO strategy for ChatGPT is just one piece of a larger puzzle for brands to solve. --- ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is the most popular AI chatbot in 2026? ChatGPT, and it is not close. It sends the most AI-chatbot referrals in 192 of 197 countries, with an average share of around 71%. Its lead has been slipping in most markets as people add other assistants alongside it, but it is still the default in almost every country. ### Which AI chatbot is gaining the most market share? Google Gemini. Measured by percentage points of referral share gained over the past year, it was the biggest riser in 143 of the 179 countries we could reliably score, more than every other assistant combined, and it now sits second by usage. ### Does this include business and enterprise use? Largely not. Referral data reflects public, logged-out style browsing. A lot of AI use now happens inside enterprise and workplace tools such as ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini in Google Workspace and Copilot in Microsoft 365, where the answer usually stays in the app and never appears as a referral. The mix of assistants among those paid seats could look quite different from what this data shows. ### Is ChatGPT losing users? No, and this dataset could not show that if it were happening. What has fallen is ChatGPT's *share of AI-chatbot referrals*, in 87% of countries. Share is zero-sum, so it drops whenever rivals grow faster, including when the same people simply add a second assistant. Over the same period OpenAI's reported user numbers rose. The total volume of AI referrals is growing faster than ChatGPT's share of it. --- ## About This Data This study is published by Searchable as part of our commitment to transparency in AI search. We track how AI assistants behave, and where they send real people, to help brands understand and improve their visibility in AI-generated responses. --- ## Track Your Brand Want to monitor your specific brand's visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other AI platforms? [Start for free](https://app.searchable.com/signup) | [Book a Demo](/contact-sales) --- **Company:** Searchable **Website:** https://www.searchable.com **Contact:** hello@searchable.com **Author:** JP Garbaccio, Head of SEO & AEO **Published:** 2026-07-22