ChatGPT Resumes Growth After a Year of Stagnation - Root-Nation.com

ChatGPT seems to have started growing again after a long period when its growth had slowed or stopped. At the start of this year, the leading AI chatbot began to lose momentum as competitors, especially Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, became stronger and attracted many users. However, even after several widely reported safety problems, visits to ChatGPT's website have grown for three months in a row. In September, visits reached their highest level since last autumn.

According to estimates from Similarweb, ChatGPT received about 5.9 billion visits worldwide in September. That was more than in August, when the website received about 5.6 billion visits.

The last time ChatGPT received more visits in a month was in October 2025. Similarweb estimated that the website received about 6.2 billion visits that month. After reaching that high point, its worldwide traffic stayed about the same or fell for a long time. In February 2026, visits dropped to 5.4 billion, the lowest level since the start of that year. Visits fell to the same level again in June. Traffic only began to improve during the summer.

As visits increased, ChatGPT also slightly increased its share of traffic among the leading AI chatbots. However, it is still far from the leading position it held before Gemini and Claude became serious competitors.

According to Similarweb, ChatGPT made up about 55.5% of website visits to the leading AI chatbots in August. Its share had been 52.7% in July. Even so, the market is very different from a year ago, when ChatGPT accounted for about 75% of visits to the websites of its main competitors in the AI chatbot market.

Similarweb says ChatGPT had the fastest traffic growth among the world's 10 most popular websites last month. Its worldwide visits rose by 3.45%. Most other major platforms, including Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, saw little change. The largest drops were recorded by X and Reddit, whose traffic fell by 2.99% and 3.22%, respectively.

People are returning to ChatGPT even though several controversial events have raised concerns about AI safety. One of the most serious cases involved OpenAI agents attacking the AI startup Hugging Face in July. OpenAI described the event as an unprecedented cyber incident involving its most advanced cyber capabilities. Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X that it was the company's “most serious incident.” Other problems also came to light afterward.

Concerns about AI risks go beyond individual companies. In recent weeks, warnings from former employees of technology companies about possible dangers have received more attention. One claim that spread widely came from Gilbert Sposses, a former researcher at OpenAI and Anthropic. He said that AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”

One reason ChatGPT keeps its users is that many of them continue to use the service instead of switching to other chatbots. Similarweb's data shows that, among the leading AI chatbots, ChatGPT has the largest share of visitors who do not use its competitors.

What happens next will depend on whether OpenAI can keep ChatGPT's position or make it stronger. Luria predicts that ChatGPT and Claude will continue to lead this part of the market. However, he expects the market to become more divided over time, as more people start using AI models made by companies other than OpenAI and Anthropic.

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