The app for Google’s AI chatbot Gemini just hit 1 billion monthly users, a significant milestone that competitor OpenAI’s ChatGPT only recently hit.
Most of the 1 billion monthly users seem to be Android users, since Google announced in a blog post this week that the Gemini app has more than 100 million active users on Apple’s iOS, implying that most of the rest are probably Android users. It’s worth noting that Google owns Android and Gemini comes pre-installed in many phones using that operating system.
Google had shared in its latest earnings report late last month that Gemini was very close to hitting the 1 billion benchmark, putting it in very close competition with ChatGPT, which likely hit 1 billion monthly users back in May, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
That pace, of launching in 2022 and hitting 1 billion users only three years later, had made ChatGPT the fastest-growing app ever, beating previous records set by the likes of Google Maps and TikTok. Gemini’s growth also surpassed Google Maps’ previous record with the 1 billion monthly active users benchmark, and the tech giant called the app “the fastest-growing product in Google’s history.”
Google launched its AI chatbot back in early 2023 under the name Bard with a botched demo and a subpar reception, before redebuting it as Gemini that December and launching the standalone app in November 2024. With that timeline, that would mean that Gemini beat ChatGPT’s recently set record to be the fastest to get to the 1 billion monthly active users mark.
Google Gemini’s surge challenges OpenAI’s dominance
ChatGPT started the AI craze in 2022 and had the first-mover advantage of quickly becoming the household name in AI chatbots. Silicon Valley powerhouse Google had been lagging behind the newcomer OpenAI for some time, until last year, when Gemini made significant strides and wowed users with the launch of the Gemini 3 model.
The debut and its reception got the AI world questioning how solid ChatGPT’s stronghold on the industry actually was, and it even reportedly led to internal panic at OpenAI, possibly feeding into OpenAI leadership’s decision to declare code red back in December 2025.
ChatGPT’s current monthly active users are not publicly known, but data from firms like Sensor Tower still puts ChatGPT as the top AI assistant app. Recent reports showing ChatGPT’s market share declining, however, and with competitor Gemini claiming faster growth than ChatGPT, existing worries that ChatGPT’s growth is slowing down are only compounding.
External data showed ChatGPT user growth slowing towards the end of last year, and media reports confirmed that earlier this year. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the slowdown caused OpenAI to miss internal weekly active user and revenue targets for 2025. ChatGPT had been targeting 1 billion weekly active users by the end of last year, reports claim, but is only nearing that number now.
A report from The Information, also from April, said that OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar was worried about the company’s revenue growth and uncertain that it could support the company’s mounting spending commitments, allegedly putting her at odds with CEO Sam Altman.
If the latest reports about ChatGPT growth are true, competitor Gemini’s accelerating growth would paint a concerning picture for the leading AI chatbot. And if that trend continues, things could get messy for OpenAI’s possibly market-defining IPO.
