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Important points of ZDNET
- ChatGpt and Gemini are the top two GEN AI platforms.
- Grok users are increasing, but Deepseek is down.
- Vibe Coding continues to grow steadily for Gen AI.
Consumer-generated AI products such as Openai's ChatGpt and Google's Gemini continue to change your digital life every day. These are the web products and mobile apps that have the biggest impact.
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Venture Capital Firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) has published a study tracking the most popular Gen AI apps and their use. ChatGpt and Gemini take the first and second spots of most unique monthly visits on the web and most monthly active users on mobile respectively (we didn't specify the exact numbers, but ZDNET requested them from the A16Z). The rest of the list suggests changes in the global Gen AI Superpowers and why consumers want a specific platform.
After ChatGpt and Gemini, Deepseek, Grok, Character AI, Perplexity and Claude, it occupy the next spot in web traffic. AI Gallery, Doubao, Microsoft Edge, Remini, and Baidu AI Search fill in the subsequent mobile Gen AI apps.
Canva doesn't appear in the list despite appearing second after ChatGpt in April. The report states, “It's a product that adds important generative AI capabilities, but does not include non-AI-native products such as Canva and Concepts.”
What consumers use AI
According to A16Z, which invests in most of the listed companies, these 14 platforms can let consumers know how they use GEN AI. This study narrows down consumer behavior into seven categories. Dating (Character AI); Image Generation (Midjourney, Leonardo); Image and Video Editing (Veed, Cutout Pro); Audio Generation (Eleven Lab); Productivity Tools (Photoroom, Gamma, Quillbot); Model Hosting (Civitai, Huggingface). The report did not specify a percentage for each category.
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The research notes that new Gen AI apps, such as AI Gallery, Wink, YouCut and Grok, are gaining more popularity by cracking down on the ChatGpt Copycat app. The study also suggests that the GEN AI web ecosystem is stable. In other words, Google is separating AI domains (Gemini, AI Studio, Google Labs, and NotebookLM). That is, products like Grok, Quark, Qwen3, and Lovable are seeing an increase in traffic.
ChatGpt competitors are catching up
Google alone has four products on the A16Z list, including Gemini, Notebooklm, Google Labs, and Google AI Studio. Despite ChatGpt's advantage in the General LLM assistant category, the study states that Google, Grok, and Meta are filling the gap.
Grok has seen a nearly 40% increase in monthly active users since the release of Grok 4 in July 2025. Deepseek has dropped significantly by 22% in monthly active users.
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The study also examines the increase in the use of Gen AI for Vibe Coding. This requires developers to generate code using large language models, focusing on the “atmosphere” of the application rather than the code complexity. The study noted that although this practice is in early stages, early data suggests that these platforms, such as the beloved, replicate, and Sapervers, have a loyal user base.
In the survey of five A16Z's “Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps” published so far, 14 platforms have always appeared on the top 50 web platforms: ChatGPT, ChatGGT, CharthGtai, Civitai, Leonardo AI, Leonardo AI, Gamma, Hugging Face, Veed, Midjourney, Perplexity, Photoroom, Poe, Quillbot, and Cutt Out Pro.
