By Efosa Udinmwen
Publication Date: 2026-05-14 23:20:00
- ChatGPT recorded its weakest referral market share since industry tracking officially began
- Google Gemini continued expanding through integration across Android, Chrome, Search, and Workspace
- Perplexity regained traffic share after months of declining referral activity across platforms
New market figures have suggested OpenAI’s ChatGPT is gradually losing referral share as competitors gain ground across the increasingly competitive AI chatbot industry.
The latest data from Statcounter claims ChatGPT accounted for 76.85% of AI chatbot referrals in April 2026 – which may sound high, but actually marks the platform’s lowest recorded share after three consecutive months of losses for OpenAI, which stood at over 84% just a year ago.
Google Gemini continues to grow, reaching an all-time high of 9% share and holding second place for two consecutive months, with Perplexity and Copilot also both bouncing back after months of decline, while a recent spike for Claude has started to cool.
Rivals grow as OpenAI plunges
Aodhan Cullen, CEO of Statcounter, said the AI chatbot referral market is entering a completely new phase of competition.
Google’s strategy of embedding Gemini across Search, Android, Workspace, and Chrome is clearly paying off in terms of user adoption – with the question now whether Gemini can break through the 10% barrier in the coming months.
Perplexity rose to 7.73% from 7.07% in March 2026,…
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