For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion customers. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X {that a} billion individuals are utilizing Gemini each month, and that Gemini is Google’s fastest-growing product ever.
A billion customers is a big milestone, however Google isn’t the primary AI app to hit it. OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit the mark just a few weeks in the past, although the corporate buried the announcement that “greater than 1 billion individuals are placing ChatGPT to work” in an in any other case anodyne weblog put up about how individuals use AI. Exterior knowledge recommended ChatGPT crossed 1 billion customers as early as this June, however OpenAI hadn’t introduced something till that put up on August sixth. OpenAI spokesperson Lindsay McCallum says ChatGPT crossed 1 billion month-to-month customers a while in the past, and hit a billion every week in July.
The metrics, and the expansion they signify, are considerably difficult right here. OpenAI mentioned that ChatGPT had 900 million weekly lively customers in February of this yr, and reaching 1 billion 5 months later represents a major slowdown in progress for ChatGPT, which was for years touted because the fastest-growing software program ever. McCallum declined to say what number of month-to-month customers ChatGPT has.
Google, in the meantime, introduced in February that Gemini had 750 million month-to-month customers, earlier than reporting 950 million in late July on its earnings name, and Google spokesperson Alex Joseph says it reached 1 billion final week earlier than saying it in the present day. (Claude seems to be rising quick, however Anthropic doesn’t disclose its person knowledge, and estimates put its person numbers within the tens of thousands and thousands.) There’s no straightforward method to examine weekly and month-to-month customers, in fact, however the easiest learn is that ChatGPT is the bigger of the platforms however Gemini could be the sooner rising.
These Google numbers, by the best way, all seem to refer on to the Gemini app itself, which might imply all of the locations Google has shoved Gemini into its different merchandise don’t rely. The Gemini that comes preinstalled on Android telephones seemingly does, although, which is a big win for Google — Gemini chief Josh Woodward posted that Gemini has greater than 100 million lively customers on iOS, which might imply by extension that the overwhelming majority of Gemini customers are additionally Android customers. You possibly can see why OpenAI is so concerned about constructing its personal {hardware}.
The AI race normally has tightened considerably this yr. Anthropic’s Claude Code turned a phenomenon and compelled OpenAI to meet up with Codex, whereas Google started integrating Gemini into seemingly each floor of its merchandise. The businesses’ fashions have persistently leapfrogged one another, and so they’re all immediately in a race with fashions popping out of China. However for a very long time, ChatGPT was the de facto model for AI chatbots, and whereas it’s nonetheless seemingly the most well-liked and well-known of its sort, its as soon as commanding lead seems to have largely evaporated. The race to a billion customers is over — now these corporations should race to seek out issues for these customers to do, and methods to generate profits within the course of.
