Chatbots market isn't winner takes all (www.artificialintelligencemadesimple.com)

A new analysis of 55.88 billion visits to top AI chatbots (Aug 2024–Jul 2025) shows the market is far from a winner‑take‑all race. ChatGPT accounts for 48% of traffic, but the top 10 of 10,500 tools capture only 59%—a much flatter tail than typical tech monopolies. The data fractures into three distinct strategy games: consumer-facing chatbots vying for everyday attention, platform integrations (Google’s Gemini across Search/Gmail/Android, Microsoft’s Copilot in Office/Windows) embedding LLMs into OS and productivity layers, and “quality capture” players that trade reach for deep engagement (far higher minutes per session). High-profile swings—Grok’s 1,343,408% growth and DeepSeek’s spike to 520M visits followed by a 40% crash—underscore how distribution and virality can outpace product maturity. For the AI/ML community this reframes what “winning” means: raw visits are insufficient. Session length, growth momentum, and retention decay better reveal defensibility and real user value, suggesting moats will come from integration and depth, not just reach. That shifts product, research, and valuation focus toward embedding models into workflows, measuring long‑form engagement, and optimizing for retention/utility over viral traffic. Predicting 2026 leaders will require composite metrics that blend quality and distribution rather than ranking by visits alone.