Gemini Tripled Its User Base in 2025 While ChatGPT’s Growth Slowed

Key Takeaways

• Gemini tripled its desktop user share in 2025, growing from 4-5% to 10-11% in the US and from ~4% to ~14% in the EU/UK. It overtook DeepSeek to become the second-largest AI search platform.
• ChatGPT held its lead with 25-37% user share in the US and 34-46% in Europe, but its growth rate is slowing. Most of ChatGPT’s 2025 growth happened in Q1.
• Rand Fishkin’s emerging narrative: ChatGPT stays dominant for general use and education, Gemini takes search, and Claude becomes the niche leader for coding.
• Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot remained niche with no signs of breakout adoption. Claude tripled from 1% to 3% but from a tiny base.

Gemini Tripled Its User Base While ChatGPT’s Growth Slowed

The Datos/Semrush State of Search Q4 2025 report tracks desktop AI tool usage across the US, EU, and UK. The biggest competitive shift in 2025 wasn’t a new entrant. It was Gemini quietly tripling its user base while ChatGPT’s growth trajectory flattened.

In the US, Gemini grew from 4-5% of AI tool desktop users early in the year to 10-11% by December. In Europe, the jump was even sharper: from roughly 4% to 14%. That’s enough to overtake DeepSeek and establish Gemini as the clear second-place platform behind ChatGPT.

ChatGPT Is Still the Leader, but the Growth Curve Changed

ChatGPT remained the dominant AI tool by a wide margin. In the US, it held 25-37% of desktop users throughout 2025. In the EU and UK, that number was even higher at 34-46%.

But the growth pattern shifted. Most of ChatGPT’s year-over-year increase happened in Q1 2025. From Q2 onward, the trajectory flattened. Usage grew less than 50% for the full year while Gemini tripled over the same period.

Rand Fishkin flagged this in his commentary: “The new narrative that Google is gaining the upper-hand in AI is certainly reinforced by these charts. Gemini tripled in a year, while ChatGPT grew less than 50% with a slowing trajectory.”

The Emerging Three-Platform Split

Fishkin laid out what he sees as the developing market structure: “ChatGPT will continue to be a general AI tool for many folks (especially in education), while Google/Gemini/AI Mode dominates search and becomes the primary competitor to ChatGPT in general-use, and Claude becomes the niche market leader for coding.”

The data supports this framing. Claude tripled too (from 1% to 3%), but from such a small base that it remains a rounding error in the overall market. Its strength is concentrated in developer and technical workflows, not broad consumer search.

Perplexity showed a spike in Europe in October before settling back down. Copilot stayed flat. Neither showed signs of breaking out of the niche tier.

Why Gemini’s Growth Matters for SEO

Gemini’s growth isn’t happening in isolation. Google is weaving Gemini into its entire product suite: Search, AI Mode, Android, Workspace, and more. As Gemini grows, the lines between “traditional Google search” and “AI-powered Google search” get blurrier.

For anyone building AI-first search strategies, this means Google’s AI capabilities are the ones most likely to reach your audience at scale. ChatGPT gets the headlines, but Gemini is embedded in the ecosystem where most search behavior already happens.

The destination domain data reinforces this. After using AI tools, users’ top destinations were Google, YouTube, GitHub, Amazon, and Microsoft. The AI search experience is feeding traffic back into Google’s ecosystem, not away from it.

Where AI Users Go After Searching

The report also tracked destination domains after AI search. ChatGPT rose from #14 to #6 as a destination domain year over year, in both the US and Europe. Gemini entered the top 10 for the first time.

GitHub moved up to #3, reflecting AI’s growing role in developer workflows. NIH stayed in the top 10, pointing to AI-assisted health research. Reddit climbed into the top 10 as well.

Fishkin noted the distinction: “The most interesting domains on this list are those that don’t appear in the ‘top search destinations’ list: NIH, Canva, Anthropic, GitHub, and Gemini. Those illuminate the difference in intent between AI ‘searchers’ and traditional search users.”

What This Means for Your Content Strategy

If Gemini is the rising force in AI search and it lives inside Google’s ecosystem, then optimizing for Google’s AI features is the highest-leverage play. That means understanding how AI Overviews and ChatGPT cite differently, because the content that wins in Gemini-powered features will follow Google’s selection logic, not OpenAI’s.

At the same time, getting cited by ChatGPT still matters for the largest single AI platform by user share. The play is covering both, not picking one.

Want to understand how your content performs across both Gemini and ChatGPT? Get in touch and I’ll map your citation visibility across platforms.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gemini bigger than ChatGPT?

No. ChatGPT is still the dominant AI tool by a wide margin, with 25-37% of desktop users in the US compared to Gemini’s 10-11%. The shift is in growth trajectory: Gemini tripled while ChatGPT’s growth slowed to under 50% for the year.

What happened to DeepSeek?

Gemini overtook DeepSeek in early 2025 to become the second-largest AI platform. DeepSeek’s user share has been volatile without a clear growth trajectory, while Gemini showed consistent month-over-month gains throughout the year.

Should I optimize for Gemini specifically?

Gemini pulls from Google’s index and follows Google’s content selection logic. If you’re optimized for Google Search and AI Overviews, you’re already positioned for Gemini. The key is making sure your content is structured for AI citation: clear answers, FAQ schema, and lean HTML that doesn’t get truncated at the crawl limit.

Where does this data come from?

The Datos/Semrush State of Search Q4 2025 report tracks anonymized desktop clickstream data from tens of millions of users across the US, EU, and UK. The AI platform share data covers the full 2025 calendar year with monthly breakdowns.