Original · Unique Research · 2026-01-19
Historical edition: This is the full textual English rendition of Unique Research’s January 19, 2026 article about December 2025. First-person commentary, forecasts, product capabilities, rankings, institutional descriptions, methodology and accuracy claims are the original author’s statements at that time, not independently verified current findings. The source’s definitions of unique visitors and subscription revenue (labelled ARR) are reproduced as its own methodology, not substituted with other industry definitions.
Source consistency note: The title’s Qwen growth figure of 323% is retained, although the textual body supplies 134.4% monthly-active-user growth and does not identify the title figure’s metric. Gemini’s “slightly more than half” comparison fits the reported active-user counts, not visit counts. The section heading’s “80% overseas” is approximate and differs from the body’s 73 products out of 100 and 86.6% active-user share. References to listings, acquisitions, integrations and other recent events are preserved as the January article’s commentary alongside its December measurements; this does not establish that the events occurred during the measurement period or caused those changes.
As 2025 entered its final month, the overall landscape of AI Web applications continued to diverge. Traffic and active-user data for leading products began to split visibly: some long-dominant players slowed or even declined, while others quietly accelerated in specific fields. In a recent interview, Elon Musk predicted: “The future AI landscape will have only three poles—Google, xAI, and China.” It sounded like a wild claim at the time, but Unique Research’s December data on AI Web applications captured this subtle yet crucial shift, which deserves a careful examination.
I. ChatGPT declines for two consecutive months: from “protagonist” to “infrastructure”
Let us begin with ChatGPT, the product everyone cares about most.
In December, ChatGPT recorded approximately 5.52 billion monthly visits, down another 5.59% month over month; monthly active users were approximately 460 million, continuing to decline by 2.06%. After operating at a high level for a long period, this was the second consecutive month in which both visits and monthly active users posted negative growth.
In absolute terms, it remains the undisputed center of the global AI Web. But this retreat closely resembles the classic path of a product entering a “high-level adjustment period”—its user base has grown so large that it is approaching a ceiling, while part of its new growth is being diverted:
one portion is being absorbed by Apps, its own APIs, and various embedded scenarios;
another is being diverted to more specialized tools that fit users’ needs more closely.
Interestingly, while front-end data flattened, OpenAI did not stop moving on the back end. After Claude blocked OpenCode, OpenAI immediately expressed support for Codex integration; it also spent USD 100 million to acquire Torch, a medical startup only one year old. Fundamentally, both moves advance OpenAI from “an application” toward “an ecosystem” and an “underlying capability provider.”
II. Gemini and the Google portfolio: search, knowledge, and laboratory products all rise together
Compared with ChatGPT’s “pullback from a high level,” the direction of Google products in December was much simpler: they rose together.
Gemini recorded approximately 1.74 billion visits in December, up 28.38% month over month; monthly active users reached approximately 240 million, also posting positive growth of 9.08%. It remains only slightly more than half the size of ChatGPT, but judging by its slope, it has become one of the most steadily growing leaders on the Web.
If we broaden the view to the entire Google family:
NotebookLM recorded approximately 140 million visits, up 16.06% month over month, while monthly active users exceeded 31 million, up 7.81%. The product is fundamentally “knowledge management + a long-document AI assistant.” Its steady rise in the data—especially after Gemini gained the ability to invoke NotebookLM directly—shows that many intensive information workers have begun making it part of their daily workflow.
Google Labs acts more like an “AI navigation page.” It recorded 34.22 million visits in December, up 21.18% month over month, and 8.2 million monthly active users, up nearly 30%. Products like this may not create much content themselves, but they help users “discover” AI tools. Once that node is firmly established, its pull on the overall ecosystem will be long-lasting.
Google AI Studio experienced a slight decline in visits and activity in December. The data looks more like developers shifting gears after a period of experimentation: those who remain are the people who have already embedded it into their workflows. I, for example, often build small applications in it to solve troublesome problems at work.
The Google portfolio has a distinctive characteristic. It does not dominate the ranking with one “breakout application”; instead, a complete product group spanning “search + knowledge management + laboratories + developer tools” quietly moves users’ time into Google’s own system.
III. What Musk’s “tripolar world” looks like in the data
xAI’s Grok is one of the year’s most-discussed newcomers. In December, it recorded approximately 270 million visits, up 15.67% month over month; monthly active users reached approximately 34.51 million, a modest positive increase of 1.52%. Judged solely by the figures, a considerable gap remains between Grok and the top three. But several consecutive months of upward movement have secured its position at the head of the second tier in overseas personal assistants.
Now recall Musk’s statement that the future of AI may contain only three forces—Google, xAI, and China—and compare it with this Unique Research ranking. The picture becomes more vivid:
For “Google,” as noted above, data is rising across Gemini, NotebookLM, and Google Labs.
“xAI” corresponds to Grok, pursuing a strategy of “warming slowly but sustaining momentum.”
On the Web, the “China” force appears more as a portfolio of products than a single point.
If we pull China-related products out of the ranking, a remarkably multidimensional combination appears:
DeepSeek: it is already No. 3 in the global ranking. Its December visits were approximately 310 million. Although they fell slightly by about 5% month over month, monthly active users remained approximately 37.47 million, keeping the product at a high but fluctuating level.
Doubao: it recorded approximately 110 million visits, up 14.97% month over month, and approximately 13.41 million monthly active users, up 10.65%. Supported by ByteDance scenarios, it resembles the kind of product that grew directly inside the traffic environment of the “WeChat + mini-program” era.
Quark and Baidu AI Search: their December visits were approximately 91.86 million and 69.06 million, respectively, up 13.58% and 32.19% month over month; monthly active users were approximately 24.31 million and 23.90 million, respectively, also maintaining growth close to or above 20%. Search and browsers are becoming China’s main testing ground for “large models + upgraded search experiences.”
Kimi: both visits and monthly active users declined slightly in December, but it retains a strong position in the specialized mindshare around “long-form documents + retrieval augmentation.” It appears to be adjusting its product form rather than falling behind.
A year ago, “Chinese large models” were still discussed mainly in terms of parameters and launch events. By the December ranking, three clear footholds had emerged:
consumer-facing chat and search gateways—DeepSeek, Doubao, Quark, and Baidu AI Search;
business-facing development and platform services—DeepSeek’s open platform and other vendors’ open platforms;
and content tools, video tools, and agents beginning to go global.
IV. One of December’s hottest categories: coding assistants and developer tools
If we ask which category had the most compelling growth story in December, coding assistants would probably rank among the top three.
Overseas, three representative products all grew:
Cursor: 17.21 million visits in December, up 5.43% month over month; 6.23 million monthly active users, up 8.23%.
Lovable: 23.19 million visits, up 19.43% month over month; 5.18 million monthly active users, up 16.34%.
Replit: 10.65 million visits, up 11.62% month over month; 3.89 million monthly active users, up 10.8%.
These tools do not replace ChatGPT. Instead, they “push the Chat layer one level downward” and embed it directly into IDE environments, code hosting, and collaborative-development processes. Combined with growing discussion of topics such as Claude Cowork—“an agent that writes IDE functions itself”—they are fundamentally moving “AI coding” from a passing interest into a long-term habit.
In China, we can look directly at the data:
Baidu Comate: approximately 1.84 million visits in December, surging 157.29% month over month; 1.14 million monthly active users, up 131.16%.
Tencent CodeBuddy: although visits were only 180,000, monthly active users reached 110,000, increasing 27.66% and 41.87%, respectively, month over month.
Alibaba Qoder: 1.34 million visits, up 25.3% month over month; 560,000 monthly active users, up 14.25%.
Almost all these products combine a major technology company’s cloud with a large model. The signal in the data is simple:
Although today’s AI coding assistants remain some distance from “completely replacing programmers,” the fact that “coding no longer depends solely on people” has become visible within mainstream internet companies and some medium-sized and large teams.
Outside the ranking, recently discussed new tools such as Antigravity, OpenCode, and Claude Skills continue to raise developers’ and workflow experts’ expectations for this product category.
V. Zhipu AI and MiniMax: product curves behind publicly listed companies
The source places another industry backdrop alongside its December discussion: Zhipu AI and MiniMax entered the capital markets in succession.
Our Web ranking offers a broad view of how their applications are performing.
First, Zhipu AI:
AutoGLM: approximately 370,000 visits in China’s December ranking, soaring 493.62% month over month; 240,000 monthly active users, up 625.95%. In scale, it cannot yet be called a “mass-market application,” but its slope shows the beginning of a classic S-curve that “shoots up from a small base.”
The BigModel open platform: 400,000 visits, up 25.45% month over month; 220,000 monthly active users, up 45.62%. As an underlying API and development platform, its growth connects more directly to business demand.
Zhipu Qingyan: 2.64 million visits and 630,000 monthly active users in December, with relatively moderate growth. Nevertheless, it remains important to the overall portfolio as a brand gateway and consumer-facing identity.
Next, MiniMax:
Hailuo AI: approximately 1.23 million visits in December, up 121.02% month over month; 350,000 monthly active users, up 39.33%.
The MiniMax open platform: 300,000 visits, up 13.78% month over month; 140,000 monthly active users, up 14.62%.
Capital markets no longer evaluate large-model companies only through “model parameters + financing raised.” They ask whether a company has a group of products genuinely embedded in user behavior, and whether those products’ traffic and retention curves can support a long-term business.
VI. Manus: the curve still looks good after the acquisition
Now consider the already-acquired Manus.
In December, Manus recorded approximately 14.42 million global Web visits, down slightly by 2.84% month over month; monthly active users nevertheless remained at 4.09 million, up 21.68%.
Some passing traffic has disappeared, but the number of people who stay and use it for long-term work continues to rise—after all, most people still do not know how to use it.
VII. The global Top 100 landscape: 80% overseas, while globalizing and domestic products seek breakthroughs
The structure of the global monthly-active-user Top 100 currently looks like this:
By product count: 73 overseas products, 19 China-origin products going global, and 8 domestic products.
By total monthly active users: overseas products account for approximately 86.6%, domestic products approximately 7.5%, and China-origin products going global approximately 5.9%.
In other words, overseas products still firmly control the broader Web market’s voice. But “China” is not absent; it has divided into two paths:
one consists of DeepSeek, Doubao, Quark, Baidu AI Search, and others in the domestic market;
the other consists of image/video generation, AI companionship, and agents among products going global.
Within the globalizing group, Unique Research’s data reveals a clear through line:
image/video generation tools such as SeaArt AI, Dreamina, KLING AI, and Hailuo AI;
AI companionship products such as CrushOn.AI and PolyBuzz;
and agent tools such as Manus, together constitute the group with the highest traffic and activity today.
These categories share one feature: they provide users with quick, concentrated gratification while offering relatively direct business payment scenarios—advertising, copyright, enterprise tools, and others. They are therefore naturally suited to serve as breakthrough points for Chinese teams going global.
VIII. Continuing to sprint from a high base: the group that is both “large” and “fast”
If we examine only the “global active-user growth Top 100,” an interesting question emerges:
Which products already have more than one million monthly active users and still achieved month-over-month growth above 50% in December?
Our data highlights several representative categories:
Tools and enterprise products: Oreate AI, with approximately 1.18 million monthly active users and growth of +139.25% month over month, and LanguageTool, with approximately 3.47 million and +66.4%, have turned the small tasks of “writing, rewriting, and polishing” into businesses of scale.
Audio and creator tools: Wispr Flow, with approximately 3.04 million monthly active users and +111.84% growth month over month, and Riverside, with approximately 1.21 million and growth approaching 100%, show that AI tools have a long growth runway across content-production scenarios such as podcasts, spoken content, and editing.
Video and image generation: Dreamina, with approximately 3.84 million monthly active users and +64.66% growth month over month, and Mindvideo, with approximately 1.13 million and +53.86%, continued the broader upward trend of “AI video-creation tools” over the past year.
Two representative products from China are Alibaba’s Qwen and Baidu Comate. Qwen reached 4.16 million monthly active users in China and still achieved 134.4% month-over-month growth in December; from a base of 1.14 million monthly active users, Baidu Comate continued growing at 131.16%.
These cases share one characteristic:
they are no longer experiments still “searching for a product form.” They have found a relatively clear point of value and are accelerating penetration within comparatively well-defined user groups. For investors and entrepreneurs, data that is both “large and fast” often offers more reference value than a short-lived early surge.
IX. Which categories enjoyed stronger tailwinds in December: video, personal assistants, AI companionship, and tool-driven growth
Viewed by category, Unique Research’s December Web ranking yields more intuitive conclusions.
In the global monthly-active-user Top 100:
Video editing and generation: a group of video-editing tools including InVideo, VEED.IO, Kapwing, and Clipchamp almost all posted positive month-over-month growth in monthly active users during December, with an overall category median around 10%. The median growth rate for video-generation tools was slightly lower but remained positive.
AI companionship: Character.AI, ourdream.ai, candy.ai, and others mostly rose, with the category’s median month-over-month growth in the 7%–8% range.
Personal assistants and coding assistants: whether personal assistants such as Grok or coding assistants such as Cursor, Lovable, and Replit, all are steadily adding “deep users.”
Categories under comparatively greater pressure are concentrated in education, PPT generation, and some content-detection tools. Education products such as Quizlet, Brainly, and Gauth generally posted double-digit declines in December, looking more like the result of seasonal factors combined with changing user habits.
In China’s Top ranking, the trend is even more “tool-oriented”:
Video generation, personal assistants, and productivity tools were the three categories with the highest median growth rates in December. Many products grew by 50% or even 100% month over month.
Developer tools, coding assistants, and agents also rose overall, showing that demand for “AI to intervene directly in production processes” is strengthening during this round of large-model adoption in China.
By contrast, lighter tools such as PPT generation and translation posted lower median growth or even slight pullbacks—after all, a single Gemini can now handle all of them.
Placed on one continuum, these developments create a relatively clear picture:
from “chatting with you” and “helping you write something” to “helping you edit video, write code, conduct research, and build websites,” the main direction of AI Web applications is shifting from “content output” toward “specific tasks” and “production processes.”
X. From the “battle for gateways” to the “battle for scenarios”
If the December ranking could be summarized in one sentence:
ChatGPT remains at the summit, but the truly steep slopes have moved to tools, video, coding, and agent applications; the Google portfolio is making a renewed push in search and knowledge management, while xAI and Chinese players advance steadily on their respective home ground.
For people following the industry, this ranking can serve as a highly practical reference frame:
If you are building a product, pay more attention to categories achieving both “scale and retention,” such as video generation, coding assistants, research tools, and agent workflows, rather than focusing only on pure chat or lightweight copywriting.
If you are investing, look beyond the technical metrics of the models themselves and give more attention to these product curves and category medians that are both “large and fast.” They often offer a better risk-return profile for the next stage.
Competition among AI Web applications has evolved from a simple contest in model parameters into a comprehensive battle over ecosystem integration, real-world scenarios, and developer mindshare. Although enormous gaps remain among leading players, the sources of growth momentum are quietly changing. In 2026, we may see more unexpected dark horses and more dramatic changes in the rankings.
Unique Research — An Authoritative Institution for Global AI Market Insights
The details of Unique Research’s December 2025 AI Web rankings are as follows:
AI website traffic ranking: the TOP 100 AI Web products by visits and monthly active users, separated into the global and Chinese markets.
Every ordered ranking also includes a growth ranking, helping investment institutions discover promising projects and helping entrepreneurs and developers identify potential opportunities.
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01. AI Website Traffic Rankings
1.1 Global AI WEB TOP 100 by Monthly Visits
Based on its independent research into the AI industry and ongoing tracking of thousands of AI companies and nearly 10,000 AI products worldwide, Unique Research ranks AI WEB products by their cumulative visits during the month and compiles the top 100 AI WEB products worldwide by visits, as shown in the detailed ranking below:
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
1.2 Global AI WEB TOP 100 by Monthly Active Users
Based on its independent research into the AI industry and ongoing tracking of thousands of AI companies and nearly 10,000 AI products worldwide, Unique Research ranks AI WEB products by their active-user counts during the month and compiles the top 100 AI WEB products worldwide by active users, as shown in the detailed ranking below:
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
1.3 Domestic AI WEB TOP 100 by Monthly Visits
Based on its independent research into the AI industry and ongoing tracking of thousands of AI companies and nearly 10,000 AI products worldwide, Unique Research ranks AI WEB products by their cumulative visits during the month and compiles the top 100 AI WEB products created by Chinese entrepreneurs for China’s domestic market, ordered by visits, as shown in the detailed ranking below:
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
1.4 Domestic AI WEB TOP 100 by Monthly Active Users
Based on its independent research into the AI industry and ongoing tracking of thousands of AI companies and nearly 10,000 AI products worldwide, Unique Research ranks AI WEB products by their active-user counts during the month and compiles the top 100 AI WEB products created by Chinese entrepreneurs for China’s domestic market, ordered by active users, as shown in the detailed ranking below:
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
*For the complete data, please visit 100aiapps.cn; all visible data may be copied
02. Research Statement
2.1 Data Description
The AI-product revenue data contained in this report, article, ranking, or chart is based on real-time tracking of referral traffic from official AI-product websites to payment gateways such as Stripe, combined with time-series analysis to examine historical visits, fluctuations in monthly active users, and changes in pricing strategies and thereby construct a dynamic revenue-estimation model. The model’s core parameters are determined through a three-part validation system: monitoring paid-conversion funnels, reverse-calibrating against data disclosed by companies, and comparing industry benchmark conversion rates. They are also promptly compared with and corrected against corporate financial reports, financing announcements, and disclosures by authoritative media. Sampling validation shows that the mean absolute error rate between estimates and actual data remains within ±10%, meeting standards for industry-grade research accuracy.
The AI-product traffic data contained in this report, article, ranking, or chart is based on the integration of multiple data sources and processing by Unique Research’s intelligent algorithms. Monitoring is strictly limited to users’ direct access through official applications and websites. Specifically, the data covers only direct user access to AI products through websites and native applications; it excludes traffic generated through browser plug-ins/extensions, desktop client software, WeChat/Alipay mini-program ecosystems, embedded services within third-party platforms such as Discord, local deployment of open-source models, API calls, and other forms of indirect access. This data focuses on monitoring access to the core endpoints of AI products and aims to reflect objectively how mainstream users directly use them.
Given the complexity and dynamic nature of data collection and processing, as well as continual changes in the market environment, the data shown may contain some errors and omissions. It should therefore be treated as a reference for research and analysis, intended to provide a window into the AI-product market, rather than as a definitive basis for making specific investment strategies or obtaining consulting advice.
Data Coverage Expansion Note:
We are actively developing and testing monitoring models for the following emerging fields, which we expect to add gradually to future quarterly reports:
AI agent (Agents) ecosystems
AI hardware-device sales and activity
Estimates of large-model API call volumes
Please stay tuned.
2.2 Definition of Concepts
• Geographic Dimension
Overseas AI products: products founded by entrepreneurs or teams who are not ethnically Chinese and launched primarily for the global market, including but not limited to their home market.
Domestic AI products: products founded by Chinese-national entrepreneurs or teams and launched primarily for China’s domestic market.
China-origin products going global: products founded by ethnic-Chinese entrepreneurs or teams but targeting primarily overseas markets outside China’s domestic market.
• Functional Dimension
AI-native applications: applications designed from the outset with artificial-intelligence technologies and algorithms deeply integrated, whose core value, business processes, or user experience depends entirely on AI technology. These applications do not merely use AI to optimize or enhance existing functions; AI is their core component, and without AI technology they would cease to exist or lose their core value.
AI-enabled applications: applications that enhance existing functions or provide entirely new ones by integrating or embedding AI technology into established business logic and application frameworks. These applications may already have mature business models and market positioning, but introducing AI technology can significantly improve efficiency and user experience or create new points of value.
AI-ecosystem applications: platform applications that support, connect, or facilitate communication among the AI ecosystem’s technology researchers, application developers, service providers, and end users. These applications are not limited to the technology layer; they also cover markets, communities, resource sharing, and other dimensions, seeking to promote the adoption, innovation, and collaboration of AI technology.
2.3 Metric Description
• WEB Data Metrics
Visits: the total number of all visits to a website during a specific period, such as one month, and a measure of website traffic scale. Page views within one continuous period of activity count as the same session, while a user becoming active again after an interval of more than 30 minutes or after a new day begins counts as a new visit, providing a comprehensive and precise measurement of website traffic and visitor activity.
Unique Visitors: the number of unique IP addresses that visit a target website during a specific period, such as one month. If a person visits a website on multiple days within one month, that person is counted as only one unique visitor.
Subscription revenue (ARR): the total revenue a website earns during a given period, such as one year, from subscription services provided to users. It excludes advertising revenue, transaction commissions, professional services, and other one-time revenue.
• APP Data Metrics
Downloads: the number of times an App is downloaded by users during a specific period, such as one month. It is usually measured as the number of downloads for a single App from application stores such as the App Store and Google Play; downloads are an important indicator of an App’s popularity and ability to attract users, and they can also reflect the effectiveness of the App’s promotion and marketing campaigns.
Active Users: the number of unique users who perform an activity during a specific period, such as one month. Active users measure user participation and activity over a specific period and are generally used to assess the size and engagement of an App’s user base.
In-App Purchase revenue (IAP): revenue generated when users purchase virtual goods, additional services, premium features, and other items within an App. It excludes advertising revenue, direct payments by users such as tips, and revenue from third-party Android application stores.
2.4 Free-Use Statement
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This report is an independent original analysis by Unique Research as a third-party institution. Its contents do not represent the position of any company and do not constitute investment advice to anyone. Investors must therefore note that any investment decisions made on this basis are unrelated to Unique Research, its employees, or its affiliates.
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Appendix: Summary of Quarterly Trend Insights
If we treat this December ranking as a snapshot at the “close of the year,” it points to roughly three layers of trends. The top layer is the flattening of the gateway landscape: super-applications such as ChatGPT are moving from rapid expansion into consolidation at a high level, while Google, xAI, and China’s large-model portfolios steadily close the gap from their respective positions. The middle layer is that users’ time is moving away from general conversations that “chat with you” and toward specific tools that “work for you.” Coding assistants, video generation, research assistants, and search enhancement are beginning to take over as the central stories of incremental growth and retention. The bottom layer is a redistribution of infrastructure and ecosystems: whoever can offer developers a smoother environment, enterprises a clearer ROI, and creators more reproducible workflows will have a greater chance of turning one burst of popularity into a stable business curve over the next two or three years. Looking forward from this December milestone, competition among AI Web applications has clearly moved from “who breaks out first” to “who can remain embedded in everyday life and work over the long term.”