Google announced this Wednesday (12) that Gemini reached 1 billion monthly users, six days after OpenAI revealed that ChatGPT also surpassed the mark. Google's chief executive, Sundar Pichai, posted on X that 1 billion people use the assistant per month and called Gemini the company's fastest-growing product.
With the announcement, Gemini became the 14th Google product to reach 1 billion users. OpenAI said on August 6, in a post on its official blog, that "more than 1 billion people are using ChatGPT," without highlighting the milestone.
OpenAI spokesperson Lindsay McCallum said ChatGPT surpassed 1 billion monthly users some time ago and reached 1 billion weekly users in July. In February, the company reported ChatGPT had 900 million weekly users; five months later, reaching 1 billion represented a slowdown in the pace of growth.
Google said in February that Gemini had 750 million monthly users. On the earnings call in late July, it reported 950 million. Spokesperson Alex Joseph said the app reached 1 billion last week, ahead of the official announcement this Wednesday.
Google's figures refer to the Gemini app, including the one that comes pre-installed on Android phones. Josh Woodward, the executive in charge of Gemini, said in a post that the app has more than 100 million active users on iOS, which indicates that the majority of users are on Android.
AI race
The competition in the artificial intelligence sector intensified this year. Anthropic's Claude Code became a phenomenon and led OpenAI to launch Codex, while Google began incorporating Gemini into various products. Anthropic does not disclose user data for Claude, but estimates point to tens of millions of users.
ChatGPT remains the most well-known assistant, but the advantage it had over competitors has shrunk. With the race for 1 billion users over, the challenge for companies now is to find new ways to use and monetize that base.
