Key Points
- ChatGPT is now the world’s fifth-most-popular website, beating Amazon, X, and Wikipedia.
- The platform attracts 76% of all traffic to generative AI tools, with 6.3 billion visitors in September.
- Google’s Gemini is a distant second, capturing about 12.5% of the market.
- The user base is aging, with visitors aged 45 and up now accounting for nearly 30% of traffic.
AI chatbots have officially gone mainstream, attracting more visitors than some of the internet’s biggest names. Since the middle of 2024, chatbots have surpassed legacy giants like Amazon, X, Reddit, and Wikipedia in raw visitor numbers.
According to data from the web analytics platform Similarweb, ChatGPT is now the fifth-most-popular website in the world as of September 2025. It trails only the absolute titans of the web: Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
While OpenAI’s tool is the only chatbot to crack the top five, the entire sector is booming. Web visits to leading AI chatbots shot up 76% over the last year, and mobile app usage grew by a staggering seven times. ChatGPT remains the undisputed leader, pulling in 6.3 billion visitors in September and capturing 76% of all traffic to generative AI platforms.
Google’s Gemini holds a distant second place, with just over a billion users, or about 12.5% of the market. Other tools like China’s DeepSeek, X’s Grok, and the AI search engine Perplexity barely registered in comparison.
The audience for these tools is also changing. Two years ago, young users between 18 and 34 made up over 60% of the audience. Today, that number has dropped to 53% as older demographics have joined. Visitors aged 45 and above now account for nearly 30% of all chatbot usage.
But it’s not all smooth sailing for the top dog. Despite its massive success, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly declared a “code red” this week. He urged his team to focus on improving ChatGPT’s user experience as powerful new competitors, like Google’s Gemini 3, begin to challenge its dominance.
