In just one year, generative artificial intelligence has moved from a technological novelty into the everyday lives of more than a third of the world's population. This is according to the new global Digital 2027 report, published by the agency We Are Social together with Meltwater, with data analysis carried out by Manochi. The report shows how many people use chatbots, which ones they prefer, and what they use them for.
According to analysts, more than 3.2 billion users access at least one major AI platform every month, representing roughly 39 percent of the world's population. Between October 2025 and October 2026, their number increased by more than 1.2 billion, equivalent to growth of 57 percent. However, the authors point out that some people may have multiple accounts, such as one for work and another for personal use. The actual number of individuals will therefore be somewhat lower.
ChatGPT Still Leads
ChatGPT still holds the largest share. According to a survey by GWI, more than 1.1 billion adult internet users alone used it each month in the second quarter of 2026. OpenAI gained roughly half a billion new weekly users over the past year, and the number of people using its mobile apps has more than tripled in two years. According to Similarweb data, ChatGPT has twice as many monthly users as any other platform.
However, its rivals are growing faster. Google's Gemini mobile app quadrupled its number of active users in a year and now has more than twenty-three times as many as it did in August 2024. These figures do not include artificial intelligence built directly into Android. The biggest leap this year was made by Anthropic's Claude. Its app had seventeen times as many active users in August 2026 as it did a year earlier and nearly eighty times as many as in August 2024.
In the mobile app rankings excluding China, ChatGPT leads with more than three times as many users as Gemini. Microsoft's Copilot ranked third, Claude fourth, and China's DeepSeek fifth. The ranking looks slightly different on the web. Gemini already receives more than 60 percent of ChatGPT's traffic there, while third-placed Claude receives roughly a quarter. DeepSeek and X's Grok do not even reach a tenth. Copilot lags behind on the web, which the authors say explains why Microsoft is merging the Copilot and Copilot 365 apps and wants to integrate artificial intelligence more deeply into Office rather than offer it as a standalone chatbot.
In China alone, at least 150 million AI users were added over the past year, according to the country's China Internet Network Information Center, CNNIC.
People Want Answers, Advice, and Companionship
The most common reason people turn to artificial intelligence is to find information. More than 60 percent of active users cite this reason. Seeking advice about problems ranks second (41 percent), followed by learning or improving skills (38 percent). More than a quarter of people use it for entertainment.
Habits vary significantly between countries. Users in Saudi Arabia track their health with the help of AI more than twice as often as Danes, and Moroccans chat with it three times as often as Poles. China is the only country in the survey where fewer than half of users search for information through AI. Instead, Chinese users more often ask for personal recommendations, health advice, or ways to save time.
Age also plays a role. Nearly four-fifths of users over the age of 65 primarily search for information through AI, while young people aged 16 to 24 use it for learning four times as often as seniors.
Advice about problems does not only include practical questions. Research by Marc Zao-Sanders and Sara Biuk, who analyze posts on social media and forums, shows that therapy and companionship remain the most common use of AI. This year, they accounted for 11 percent of the cases studied, compared with just 5 percent last year. An Ipsos survey in 21 countries also found that 52 percent of people are attracted to the idea of AI as a companion, while 37 percent do not share that enthusiasm.
Shopping, Search Engines, and the Shrinking Web
Artificial intelligence is also slowly making its way into shopping. Seventeen percent of adult internet users discover new brands through it, which is enough to place it fifteenth among all channels. Banner ads lead people to new brands roughly 30 percent more often. However, the figure for AI is growing rapidly, increasing by a full percentage point in the last quarter alone.
AI plays a more significant role when people research products. Twenty-six percent of respondents use it, making it the sixth most common source. However, search engines still lead at 45 percent, and people use them 74 percent more often. Among young people aged 18 to 24, more than 31 percent consult artificial intelligence before making a purchase, compared with only a tenth of those over 65. Men use it for this purpose more often than women, at 28 percent versus 24 percent.
There are also major differences between countries. In Nigeria, more than half of internet users consult AI before making a purchase; in Israel, the figure is roughly four in ten, while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates also rank highly. At the other end is Japan, at just under 11 percent, while most of Europe and North America remain below 20 percent. Studies by Manochi show that people are not yet delegating decisions to AI. It helps them navigate the available options, but they choose the specific product themselves.
The rise of chatbots is also linked to a decline in web traffic. Since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, total traffic to the 10,000 most visited websites has fallen by more than 10 percent, and time spent on them has decreased by almost 16 percent. However, report author Simon Kemp considers mobile apps, rather than artificial intelligence, to be the main culprit. Search engines lost roughly 4 percent of visits over two years, less than the web as a whole. However, the share of people who use them to research brands fell from 51 to 45 percent over the same period.
Source: datareportal.com
