We examined close to two million LLM sessions spanning nine industries between January and December 2025. Our initial assumption was straightforward: ChatGPT dominates, user behavior is fairly uniform, and overall volume is still small and largely insignificant. The data contradicted that view. While ChatGPT accounts for 84.1% of measurable AI discovery traffic, it mainly serves as the default entry point for broad, top-of-funnel discovery. That shifts the strategic picture. Brands can’t depend on a single, discovery-centric playbook anymore. You now need a diversified, multi-platform approach that matches how people expect to get real work done at different points in their workflows. Winning increasingly depends on distinguishing which platforms drive meaningful productivity and which primarily facilitate early-stage exploration. Different LLMs are emerging as leaders in different verticals, often by substantial margins. The lesson for 2026 is more sophisticated than “prioritize ChatGPT.” Here’s what the numbers show.
The growth gap: ChatGPT vs. the rest
From January to December 2025, the leading LLM platforms expanded at sharply different rates:
- ChatGPT: 3x growth
- Copilot: 25x growth
- Claude: 13x growth
- Perplexity: 1x growth
- Gemini: 1x growth
ChatGPT continued to grow, but Copilot and Claude scaled eight to ten times faster. Perplexity and Gemini were essentially flat, or more precisely, they deepened adoption within narrow, specialized knowledge workflows. These topline figures mirror broader strategic focuses. Satya Nadella has publicly celebrated Copilot surpassing 100 million monthly users. Dario Amodei shared that Anthropic’s revenue climbed from $100 million to $8–10 billion in under two years. Aravind Srinivas noted he’s “really encouraged by the interest in Perplexity Finance,” even framing it as an…