ChatGPT leads GenAI usage as Claude, Perplexity and Gemini climb: Report

As Generative AI (Gen AI) continues its ascent in the year 2025, Open AI’s Chat GPT continues to hold the number one position, according to Cloudflare Radar’s 2025 review.

The flagship LLM chatbot faces serious competition from other AI assistants such as Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini. New additions to the 2025 top-10 list in the report include Gemini, Windsurf AI, Grok (xAI), and DeepSeek.

Avinash Vashistha, CEO and Chairman of Tholons Inc., a strategic advisory and consulting firm said, that players like DeepSeek from nowhere have entered the list, indicating that in the AI world, building traction is not very predictable and consistent. “A new player can come and disrupt and build traction overnight.”

Rankings of Gen AI models

ChatGPT which was launched in November 2022 went viral as the mainstream conversational AI platform, being used by people worldwide as one of the first such service dominated throughout the year.

But in 2025, Claude from #5 spot in the 2024 rankings jumped to the second position mostly on weekdays in July and August, after staying in the lower ranks earlier this year, delivering ones the strongest performances for the year owing to its consistent enterprise positioning.

Vashistha noted that the real differentiator lies in the strength of the underlying models, an area where Anthropic has built a credible foundation with Claude.

While Perplexity from #7 in the charts claiming the third position this year, was placed on #6 in the 2024 rankings. Google’s flagship generative AI model and chatbot Gemini a new entrant to the list consistently rose through the rankings in 2025, racing ahead of Claude in mid-September, it held the second position on most days before ending the year #4 in the cumulative annual rankings.

Avinash Vashistha, an advisor to the Fortune 500 companies on AI-driven reinvention said, “Having Gemini as a competitor to ChatGPT is obviously a very natural choice, owing to it being an advanced AI model of Google, the predominant search engine for a long time, so it has obviously got an good base for people who are trying to look for information. Because these days the technology is how you reimagine? How do you ideate it? And Google has got amazing ability to be able to do that stuff.” 

Other new entrants like xAI’s Grok led by Elon Musk broke into the top 20 by mid-February and climbed to ninth place by the month’s end, before going on to hit a peak position of sixth during several weekends in October and November. according to the 2025 review report.

The Chinese chatbot and open-source model maker, DeepSeek, recorded the year’s sharpest breakout, jumping from outside the top 20 to third place in just a week. The surge underscored how rapidly new players can reshape the generative AI market, with DeepSeek later settling into a steady top-10 position.

 “Clear weekend-versus-weekday patterns emerged, where ChatGPT and Claude dominated weekdays, reflecting workplace adoption, while Grok, Perplexity, and DeepSeek performed better on weekends, indicating stronger consumer and potentially hobbyist appeal,” the Cloudflare Radar report said.

Coding AI Rankings

GitHub Copilot strengthened its position among coding assistants, moving up from seventh place in 2024 to sixth in 2025, and briefly climbing as high as third during several days in the year’s first half. Windsurf AI (formerly Codeium) started strong at #4 but declined to lower ranks by year-end as consumer-facing platforms rose. Formerly known as Codeium ranked #3 on the 2024 year review, before the platform rebranded to Windsurf in 2025.

Avinash also said that, when one tool can deliver multiple capabilities at the same level, the need for ten tools disappears. The real question is how its attributes differ for enterprises versus consumers, and how the product and services are designed accordingly. He added that thought market share for Chat GPT is 60%, the growth rate for Gemini is set to only rise and will capture a higher market share in 2026.