Google Gemini's Surge: Major Shift in the AI Market

Google's Gemini AI model has rocketed its generative AI web traffic share more than threefold in the past year, jumping from 5.4% to 18.2%. Meanwhile, OpenAI's ChatGPT experienced a throne-shaking decline from 87.2% to 68%, per Similarweb analytics. This 19-point drop signals a profound reshaping of the AI landscape, triggering a "Code Red" panic at OpenAI that accelerated the rushed launch of GPT-5.2 on December 11. On December 17, Google rolled out Gemini 3 Flash as the default engine for Search AI Mode worldwide, solidifying its aggressive thrust into AI-powered search.

Analysts credit Gemini's dramatic ascent to a "flow-capturing" strategy, as strategist Shay Boloor describes it. Unlike rivals, Gemini is seamlessly woven into Chrome, Android, Google Workspace, and Search, letting users tap into the AI assistant right within their daily workflows—no need for a separate site or app. Sensor Tower figures reveal Gemini's monthly active users surged over 30% from August to November 2025, hitting 346 million, while ChatGPT's growth crawled to just 6% in the same window.

Microsoft's Copilot, despite embeds in Windows and Edge, squandered its distribution edge, with market share stuck between 1.2% and 1.5%. On the tech front, Gemini 3 Flash shines with frontier-grade reasoning at triple the speed of its predecessor, nailing 78% on the SWE-bench Verified coding benchmark—outpacing even the beefier Gemini 3 Pro. It crunches queries at about 218 tokens per second, sipping 30% fewer resources.

This momentum has propelled Alphabet's stock over 60% higher year-to-date, trouncing the Nasdaq's 17-22% rise. ChatGPT still rules with roughly 810 million monthly users as of November, but as AI evolves from standalone hubs to embedded tools, the age of single-platform supremacy seems to be fading. As Solid Finance CEO Sam Badawi put it, "That's not noise—if web habits mirror mass preferences, Google isn't just playing; it's winning share."