Claude
Seven former OpenAI employees, including siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei, founded Anthorpic in 2021 to develop safe AI models for the public. They developed the Claude family of LLMs. Anthropic launched its ChatGPT competitor, Claude, in early 2023.
Whereas ChatGPT aims to be an all-in-one AI toolkit, Claude is a more sophisticated model. It tends to be better for generating long-form content, analyzing lengthy documents, and for complex coding tasks. Claude typically offers more human-like responses and is more protective of user data.
Claude experienced explosive usage growth in 2026, more than doubling its daily active mobile users from around 5 million at the end of 2025 to over 10 million by the end of February 2026. Claude’s usage will likely continue to grow as more people use the AI tool to help them accomplish specific tasks.
Gemini
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google as a website search engine in 1995. The company, now Alphabet (GOOG -0.52%)(GOOGL -0.37%), has grown over the years by reinvesting its growing profits into new technologies, including AI. The company’s Google subsidiary announced its ChatGPT rival, Bard A.I., in February 2023. Google rebranded Bard as Gemini a year later when it launched a more powerful model.
Many investors feared that Google would fall behind in the AI era as chatbots disrupted its search dominance. However, with the launch of more powerful Gemini models, Google has emerged as an AI leader. Gemini is more than a standalone AI chatbot; its deep integration across Google’s apps is a defining feature. It empowers users to ask questions on a Chrome tab, edit in a Google Doc, create a curated playlist on YouTube, and more. Google has also embedded Gemini in its search engine to provide users with AI overviews.
More users are working with Gemini each day. The company surpassed the 5 million active daily mobile users mark last summer and eclipsed 10 million daily users late last year. Given its integration into Google’s apps, Gemini’s user base will likely continue to grow.
