Winners and Losers in the Gen AI Market

2025 was a wild ride for Generative AI. A year that felt less like a steady climb and more like a high-stakes rollercoaster. While ChatGPT is still the undisputed heavyweight champion by volume, the real drama happened in the rearview mirror, where challengers were gaining ground at breakneck speeds.

Here’s a look at the big moments from the last 12 months that shifted the landscape, and why they matter for what’s coming next.

1. The efficient frontier breakout: DeepSeek (February 2025)

DeepSeek saw a massive 121% traffic spike in February, jumping from 277M to 614M visits.

This was the month DeepSeek released DeepSeek V4. The model caused a global AI Reality Check because it matched the performance of top-tier US models (like GPT-4 and Claude 3.5) while reportedly costing a fraction to train. Its success forced the industry to shift focus from brute-force scaling to algorithmic efficiency.

Key takeaway

While traffic dipped slightly after the initial hype, DeepSeek remained a top-3 player for much of the first half of the year, signaling that high-quality open-source low-cost models are a permanent threat to the incumbents, proving that algorithmic efficiency can beat brute-force scaling.

2. The launch of the year: Grok 3 (February–March 2025)

In February, Grok.com experienced an astronomical 4,168% growth, followed by another 293% in March.

This aligns perfectly with Elon Musk’s February 17, 2025, release of Grok 3. Marketed as the most powerful AI on Earth, its launch turned Grok from a niche X-integrated tool into a major standalone destination.

Key takeaway

Grok’s traffic plateaued and even declined in the summer months, suggesting that while its edgy personality drives huge launch interest, it struggled with long-term retention compared to utility-first tools like Claude or Perplexity.

3. Google’s late-year surge: Gemini (September & December 2025)

Gemini was the most consistent high-growth player of 2025, ending the year with 548% total growth. Key spikes occurred in September (+46%) and December (+28%).

In September, Google launched Gemini 2.5, which introduced true multimodal capabilities (processing text, image, and sound simultaneously in real-time) and deeper integration into the Google Workspace ecosystem (Gmail, Docs, Drive).

The rollout of Gemini Drops in December, which included the Gemini 2.5 Flash update and Shareable Gems, allowed users to create and share custom AI agents.

Key takeaway

Google is winning through its ecosystem advantage. By embedding Gemini into Gmail and Docs, they’ve made AI a frictionless part of the tools people already use every day.

4. The October AI war: Meta, Claude, and Perplexity

October 2025 felt like a battle for the middle ground, with the specialized players all making huge moves simultaneously. Meta AI saw a massive 105% traffic spike after it leaned into its greatest strength. Its massive social footprint. 

By weaving AI deeper into Facebook and Instagram feeds and pushing their AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, Meta turned the chatbot into a ubiquitous social companion.

Meanwhile, Anthropic (Claude) and Perplexity were turning AI from something you talk to into something that does things for you. Anthropic launched its Skills feature, transforming Claude into an agentic worker capable of running scripts and handling complex professional workflows. Not to be outdone, Perplexity jumped from a search engine to a search agent with the launch of the Comet Browser, a dedicated tool designed to navigate the web autonomously on your behalf.

Key takeaway

In late 2025, the industry shifted from Knowledge AI to Action AI. The winners are no longer just answering questions. They are completing tasks, whether that’s social browsing, professional coding, or autonomous research.

Summary table: 2025 growth leaders

Looking ahead: January 2026

As we kick off this month, the Chatbot Era is officially evolving into the Agent Era. We’ve already seen OpenAI launch ChatGPT Health and a new ChatGPT Go tier (yes, ads are coming to AI.), while Anthropic just released Claude Cowork, a tool that lives on your desktop and helps you manage files like a real human assistant.

How is your industry being impacted? 

The AI Era of 2026 will change how every website receives traffic. Don’t fly blind. Use our free AI Traffic Checker to analyze your and your competitors’ Gen AI traffic. Simply enter any URL to see its AI-generated traffic share and stay ahead of the curve.

by Darrell Mordecai

Darrell creates SEO content for Similarweb, drawing on his deep understanding of SEO and Google patents.