Google's AI assistant, Gemini, is on the cusp of joining an exclusive roster of the company's products boasting over a billion users, a list that already includes renowned services such as Search, Gmail, Drive, Android, YouTube, and Chrome. During its Q2 2026 earnings call, the tech giant announced that Gemini has now surpassed 950 million monthly users.
The company highlighted a remarkable tripling of Gemini's user base since last year. This rapid expansion follows an earlier report in February, which indicated the Gemini app had already exceeded 750 million monthly active users. This accelerated growth firmly positions Google's assistant as a direct competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which itself reached 1 billion monthly active users in June.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai underscored the platform's success during the call, stating, “Users love new agentic features like Daily Brief and our personalized agent, Gemini Spark, which is now available in the U.S. and internationally. We’ve been shipping helpful new features like this at an incredible pace.”
Beyond its strong Android foundation, the Gemini app has also cultivated a substantial user base on iOS, bolstered by innovations such as the Nano Banana image generation model. Data from AppFigures indicates that the app has been downloaded over 137 million times on iOS devices within the past 12 months.
A recent “State of AI” report from analytics firm Sensor Tower, analyzing the first half of 2026 (H1 2026), revealed a significant shift in the market. For the first time, ChatGPT’s market share among AI assistants dipped below 50%, while Gemini’s share notably climbed to 27.7%.
Despite the growing trend of individuals utilizing AI assistant apps as substitutes for traditional search engines, Google reported robust performance within its search vertical, partly attributed to an AI-centric overhaul. The company's Q&A-style AI mode within search crossed 1 billion users this quarter, contributing to an “incremental increase” in search queries. Google further noted that advancements in hardware engineering have allowed it to reduce the operational cost of its AI mode, even while introducing new models and features.
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