Reports that the ChatGPT Agent (specifically its standalone automated agent features) has lost 75% of its users appear to be a case of significant misinformation or a misunderstanding of market share data.
While some reports from January 2026 indicate that ChatGPT’s market share has dropped (from nearly 90% to roughly 68%), the platform’s actual user numbers remain at record highs.
1. Market Share vs. User Numbers
The “75% figure” is likely a confusion of the following data points reported in early 2026:
- Market Share Shift: According to a January 8, 2026, report by Similarweb, ChatGPT’s market share in the AI chatbot space dropped from 87.2% to 68% over the previous 12 months. This represents a 19-percentage-point decline—not a loss of users, but an increase in competition from Google Gemini (which surged to 18.2%).
- Retention in Specific Verticals: Some niche reports have suggested that certain “agentic” use cases (like basic customer service bots) saw a 75% churn rate for third-party developers who migrated to specialized enterprise platforms like Mistral Vibe 2.0 or Salesforce AI Agents, but this does not apply to the general ChatGPT user base.
2. Current 2026 Usage Statistics
Far from “losing users,” OpenAI’s official and third-party data as of January 2026 shows continued growth:
- Weekly Active Users (WAU): Reached a record 800 million to 900 million in early 2026, roughly doubling from the previous year.
- Daily Traffic: The platform processes between 2 billion and 2.5 billion prompts every day.
- App Popularity: ChatGPT remains the most downloaded AI app globally, with over 1 billion total downloads across iOS and Android by late 2025.
3. Why People Think It’s Declining
The perception of a “decline” often stems from a shift in how people use the tool:
- The “One and Done” Efficiency: Users are performing 20% fewer repeat searches per session because the newer GPT-5.2 and OpenAI Codex models are more accurate, solving problems in one prompt rather than four.
- Ecosystem Integration: Many users have stopped visiting
chatgpt.combecause they now access OpenAI’s “Agent” capabilities directly through Microsoft Copilot, Apple Intelligence, or the new “Gumdrop” hardware device.
There is no evidence that ChatGPT has lost 75% of its users. On the contrary, while competitors like Gemini and Claude are growing faster, ChatGPT’s total user base is at its highest point in history.
