Everybody has an opinion about which AI chatbot is winning. Usage numbers come from the companies themselves, in press releases, whenever they're flattering.
So I looked at something nobody controls: how many people read each one's Wikipedia article, every month. Three lines on one chart, using the Controls tab in my free Google Sheet, the Wikipedia Trends Tracker.
The short answer
By Wikipedia readers, ChatGPT is far more popular than Claude or Gemini: about 21.5 million English Wikipedia views from January to September 2026, against about 2 million for Claude and under 1 million for the Gemini chatbot article. The race for second place flipped. Gemini's article was ahead of Claude's in 2025. Claude's has been ahead in 2026.
The numbers
All figures are human readers on English Wikipedia, from Wikimedia's pageviews API. Where an article was renamed, I added the old and new titles together.
- ChatGPT: about 42.8 million views in 2025, and about 21.5 million from January to September 2026. Its biggest month was April 2023, with about 8 million.
- Claude: about 831,000 views in 2025, and about 2 million from January to September 2026. Its biggest month was March 2026, with about 334,000.
- Gemini (the chatbot article, which started as Bard): about 913,000 views in 2025, and about 878,000 from January to September 2026.
Claude's article got more readers in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of 2024 and 2025 combined.
Why the titles matter here
This comparison is a good lesson in how messy Wikipedia history can be.
- Gemini has been three articles. Google's chatbot launched as Bard, so its early readers are under "Bard (chatbot)". Then the article became "Gemini (chatbot)", and later "Google Gemini". There's also a separate "Gemini (language model)" article about the models. Even counting that one too, Claude was ahead in 2026.
- Claude was renamed in 2026. "Claude (language model)" became "Claude (AI)". Chart only the new title and you'd think Claude appeared out of nowhere in mid-2026.
If you see a line fall to almost nothing in one month, check for a rename before you believe it.
How to chart three AI tools yourself
- Get the free template from the Trend Tracker page and make a copy.
- Open the Controls tab. It's the first one.
- Paste three Wikipedia links into Page 1 to Page 3, for example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_(AI)andhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Gemini. - Set Range to All time and Daily or monthly to Monthly.
- Click Fetch views + chart. The first time, Google asks you to allow the script.
- Read the chart. ChatGPT will dominate the shared scale, so the Views tab has every month's number for each page. To see the smaller line's shape, chart its column on its own.
One catch: Claude and Gemini were renamed, so by default their lines only go back as far as their current titles. Set Include old names to Yes and the sheet adds the old titles (Claude (language model), Gemini (chatbot), Bard (chatbot)) for you.
Swap in any trio you're curious about: Perplexity, Copilot, Mistral, DeepSeek. If it has a Wikipedia article, it has a line.
What the chart says, and what it doesn't
Wikipedia readers measure curiosity: people wanting to know what something is. ChatGPT is the name most people learned first, so it gets the most readers by far. A rising line for a smaller tool means more people are hearing about it and looking it up.
It doesn't measure how many people use each one every day, and it doesn't say which one is better. It's one honest signal, and a free one.
The head-to-head version, with Claude's renamed article counted in full, is on the ChatGPT vs Claude page.
FAQ
Is ChatGPT more popular than Claude and Gemini?
By English Wikipedia readers, yes, by a wide margin. ChatGPT's article had roughly ten times Claude's readers from January to September 2026.
Is Claude more popular than Gemini?
On English Wikipedia, Claude's article has had more readers than the Gemini chatbot article every month of 2026 through September. In 2025 it was the other way around.
Why not just use Google Trends?
Google Trends would show all three on a 0 to 100 scale where ChatGPT is 100 and the others sit near the floor. Wikipedia gives you real counts, so you can see how big the smaller lines actually are.
Track your own AI tools, or any three things. Get the free Wikipedia Trends Tracker and paste your three into the Controls tab.
More on tracking trends
- How to compare the popularity of two things with real data.
- How to tell a trend from a fad.
- How to use the Wikipedia pageviews API in Google Sheets, including how to add renamed titles together.
