OpenAI still rules AI by sheer size, but it is no longer running away with it. ChatGPT’s apps crossed 1 billion monthly users in May, the fastest any app has reached the milestone, according to Sensor Tower’s State of AI 2026 report.
Yet on the metric that pays the bills, Anthropic’s Claude is pulling ahead: it now earns more revenue per user than ChatGPT does.
Claude’s average revenue per user on mobile in the US rocketed from under $0.50 last September to $2.76 in May. Forbes, citing the fuller report, puts that at roughly 1.5 times ChatGPT’s $1.74. Claude also converts best of any major assistant, with 13 per cent of its users now paying for a subscription.
ChatGPT’s lead on raw users is, meanwhile, narrowing. Its market share slipped below 50 per cent for the first time in March, down from 81 per cent two years earlier, and stood at 46.4 per cent by the end of May as Google’s Gemini (27.7 per cent) and Claude (10.3 per cent) gained ground.
Why Claude’s revenue per user beats ChatGPT
