This paper examines competition in the consumer AI assistant market using worldwide iOS and Android app-store data from seven major AI assistants from May 2023 through December 2025. Rather than finding a winner-take-all market, we show that major product launches tend to coincide with growth in the overall category, with little evidence of direct cannibalization across leading models. In other words, the “AI war” appears less zero-sum than commonly assumed.
The analysis identifies three distinct strategic positions that currently appear viable to date. ChatGPT is pursuing scale, with by far the largest market share and substantial revenue generated from a very large user base. Google Gemini is pursuing an ecosystem defense strategy, using broad distribution and low direct monetization to support Google’s wider platform. Claude is pursuing a differentiated premium niche strategy, with a much smaller user base but much higher revenue per user.
There are three practical takeaways for managers and investors. First, firms should not assume that AI markets will necessarily converge to a single dominant winner. Second, the right AI strategy depends on structural advantage: scale, ecosystem leverage, or premium differentiation. Third, as market growth slows and capital becomes less abundant, each strategy will face different risks, making monetization quality and strategic fit more important than raw user growth alone.
Maxime C. Cohen, Professor, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
Eddy Hage-Youssef, McGill University
Daniel M. McCarthy, Associate Professor of Marketing, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park
D. Daniel Sokol, Professor, USC Gould School of Law; USC Marshall School of Business