Gemini & Grok vs ChatGPT: Latest AI Insights from a16z
The race to lead the generative ai chatbot space is heating up, with rivals like Google’s Gemini and Elon Musk’s xAI Grok rapidly closing the gap to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to the latest consumer ai report from venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), these emerging players alongside Meta ai are reshaping the ai product landscape as users increasingly experiment with a diverse array of ai tools. (The Top 100 Gen Ai Consumer Apps - 5th Edition)
a16z Releases Its Fifth Consumer AI Landscape Report
Andreessen Horowitz’s newest ai report is the fifth in its series tracking consumer adoption and usage patterns of generative ai tools over the past two and a half years. The report draws on data from third-party market analytics firms—including Similarweb for web traffic and Sensor Tower for mobile app downloads—and documents the shifting dynamics of consumer preferences in ai technology. (State of AI Apps Report 2025)
For the fifth consecutive time, a set of 14 companies remained top contenders in the space. These include industry staples like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, Character AI, and Midjourney, serving a broad spectrum of user needs from conversational assistantship and companionship to image generation, video editing, voice synthesis, productivity, and ai model hosting. The other nine top contenders, as detailed in the full report, represent a diverse range of specialized ai applications.
Google Makes a Significant Leap with Gemini and More
One of the most notable new developments in this iteration of the report is Google’s increasing prominence. For the first time, Google secured four entries in the top generative ai web products list. These include:
Gemini — Google’s cutting-edge generative ai model and chatbot, designed for a wide range of text and code generation tasks.
AI Studio — a developer sandbox environment for building with Gemini models, allowing users to experiment and create ai-powered applications.
NotebookLM — Google’s experimental ai-powered note-taking assistant that helps users synthesize information from documents.
Google Labs — a hub for Google’s ai experiments, including projects like Flow, a tool for building and deploying ai models, and Project Mariner, an initiative focused on enhancing ai model capabilities.
Among these, Gemini ranked as the No. 2 ai app overall, significantly closing the gap on the No. 1-ranked ChatGPT, especially on mobile devices. While ChatGPT still leads comfortably with nearly double the monthly active users, Gemini’s rapid growth is notable. The app has a particularly strong foothold on Android, where it captures approximately 90% of its user base. On the web, Gemini garnered about 12% of ChatGPT’s traffic, illustrating its growing influence.
The Rise of xAI’s Grok and Meta AI’s Pursuit
Elon Musk’s ai venture, xAI’s Grok, has made remarkable strides since its launch on X (formerly Twitter) in late 2024. Now equipped with a stand-alone app, Grok surged into fourth place among web ai products and ranks 23rd on mobile platforms, boasting over 20 million monthly active users. Grok’s growth accelerated further after the July 2025 release of Grok 4, which improved features and subscription options. In a remarkably swift development cycle, this demonstrates the rapid pace of innovation in the ai space.
Meta ai, on the other hand, saw mixed results. The company’s general-purpose ai assistant held steady at No. 46 in web rankings but failed to make the top mobile list. Its progress was partly hindered by negative publicity when reports revealed that Meta ai was sharing some users’ posts publicly without their informed consent on the web. This privacy concern likely contributed to its stagnant ranking and failure to gain traction on mobile.
Other Key Players and Trends
Claude and DeepSeek showed varying momentum: Claude grew steadily, while DeepSeek’s user base declined significantly on both mobile (down 22% from its peak) and web (down 40%).
Chinese ai developers remain influential globally, with notable apps like Quark (No. 9 on web), Alibaba’s AI assistant Doubao (No. 4 on mobile), and Moonshot AI’s Kimi (No. 17 on web) gaining traction. The global influence of Chinese ai developers stems from significant investment in ai research and development, coupled with a large domestic market that fosters rapid iteration and adoption. While most of these apps have primary user bases in China, they are expanding internationally, leveraging advanced capabilities and competitive pricing.
Of the top 50 mobile ai apps, 22 were developed in China, although only a few primarily serve the Chinese market. Popular Chinese-origin apps include Meitu’s photo editing suite and ByteDance’s Doubao. It's important to note that ByteDance's Doubao is a distinct app from Alibaba's AI assistant Doubao.
Emerging startups like Lovable and Replit made their debut on the list, reflecting growing interest in ai-powered coding and developer tools.
Newcomers and Apps on the Horizon
Andreessen Horowitz also highlights ai apps on the verge of breaking into the top ranks, including PixAI, Bolt, Blackbox AI, Clipchamp, and Getliner on the web, as well as Talkie, Seekee, Photo AI, AI Mirror, and Arvin on mobile. These apps are considered on the verge due to their innovative features, strong user engagement in niche areas, or potential to address emerging user needs. For instance, PixAI focuses on ai-generated art, while Talkie offers ai-powered conversational experiences. The report notes a surge of originality in ai app offerings on mobile platforms, following stricter app store regulations that have curbed the flood of ChatGPT knockoff apps. These regulations, which likely involve more rigorous review processes for app functionality and originality, have pushed developers to create more unique and valuable ai tools rather than simply replicating existing popular ones.
What This Means for the AI Ecosystem
The a16z report underscores that ChatGPT remains the dominant ai assistant, but the competitive landscape is evolving rapidly. Google’s aggressive rollout of Gemini-powered products, coupled with xAI’s Grok gaining significant user traction, signals a maturing market that is expanding beyond a single dominant player. Likewise, user demand is diversifying—ranging from simple chatbots to sophisticated development tools, voice interfaces, and multimedia creativity platforms.
As ai continues to integrate into consumer and professional environments, watching how these companies innovate, address privacy and ethical challenges, and capture new users will be critical to understanding the future shape of ai technologies.