Silicon Valley's top venture capital firm a16z recently released its annual report on the consumer AI market, highlighting that the current competition centers on general-purpose AI assistants, with users typically choosing just one primary product—accelerating a "winner-takes-most" landscape.

The report reveals that despite rising AI adoption, users show minimal willingness to cross platforms. Even among ChatGPT's weekly active users, fewer than 10% simultaneously use other AI services. Consumption data corroborates this: only about 9% of users pay for multiple assistant subscriptions among mainstream products.

While OpenAI maintains its lead with 800–900 million weekly active users, its "super app" strategy faces challenges. Meanwhile, Alphabet's experimental approach with Gemini shows rapid growth, with desktop users up 155% year-over-year and paid subscriptions growing nearly twice as fast as ChatGPT's.

**The Battle of Titans: A "Winner-Takes-Most" Game?** A key question in the AI assistant space is whether users will adopt multiple chatbots. Data suggests most users rely heavily on just one. Among active ChatGPT users, fewer than 10% use other large models. Paid behavior reinforces this: only ~9% subscribe to multiple services, indicating a "winner-takes-most" outcome.

ChatGPT retains dominance with 800–900 million weekly actives, while Gemini's web/mobile users are ~34% and 40% of ChatGPT's, respectively. User stickiness favors ChatGPT (36% DAU/MAU vs. Gemini's 21%). However, Gemini's desktop users grew 155% YoY, outpacing ChatGPT's 23%, while its Pro subscriptions surged ~300% versus ChatGPT's 155%. The race has shifted from user acquisition to monetization and quality.

**OpenAI's "Walled Garden" vs. Alphabet's "Testing Ground"** OpenAI focuses on consolidating AI needs into ChatGPT, adding features like Pulse updates and group chats—though complexity rises. Standalone Sora hit 12M downloads but lags in retention. Alphabet, meanwhile, pursues decentralized experimentation (e.g., NotebookLM, 8M mobile MAU), balancing innovation with clarity but risking fragmentation.

**Niche Players Differentiate** Anthropic's Claude targets professionals with tools like Skills and Artifacts, excelling in document/slide generation. Its coding assistant, Claude Code, hit $1B annualized revenue in six months. Perplexity serves efficiency-focused non-tech users; its AI browser Comet has 1M+ users. Elon Musk's xAI emerged as a dark horse: Grok, integrated with X, reached 38M MAU by mid-December, rapidly adding animation, text-to-video, and voice synthesis—potentially the fastest-evolving AI product.