Consumer and workplace editions · Quarterly, with monthly signals

AI Adoption Atlas

Name: AI Adoption Atlas, Edition 1 (October 2026)
Creator: Alejandro Mainetto
Published: 2026-10-07

Edition 1 · Q2 2026 data Beta Updated Oct 7, 2026 Early Q3 signals through Sep 2026 ChatGPT · Gemini · Copilot · Claude Public sources only

How many people use each leading AI assistant, how much activity each one gets, which one people use most and prefer, and what companies pay for. The Atlas draws on ten public sources: eight feed the charts and two (Pew and StatCounter) serve as cross-checks. Each is shown at its own published figure and month, so you can see where they agree and where the story changes depending on what is measured.

Scope: the Atlas tracks four general-purpose AI assistants, plus signals of how companies buy and use AI at work. Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek are left out because each had 3% or less of US AI prompts in Comscore's January and June 2026 readings. Meta AI is left out because the sources do not report it consistently. Coding tools (such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code), AI built into other software, and AI agents are outside its scope. Most measures are shares of a growing market, not counts of users.

The picture as of Q2 2026

Published figures, with the month each was measured

ChatGPT

Largest share of activity

Half of US AI prompts in June, down from 70% in January (Comscore). Yet its US audience grew from 59M to 99M monthly visitors over the year: a smaller share of a bigger market, not fewer users.

Gemini

Level with ChatGPT on reach

In June, 46% of US adults who have heard of AI tools said they used Gemini in the past month, about the same as ChatGPT's 45%. And 39% of recent AI users call it the tool they use most (Verasight). It gets a smaller share of prompts and visits.

Copilot*

Seats, not standalone use

Microsoft reports 30M+ paid seats, but most use happens inside Office apps that public trackers miss. Standalone it shows 5% of prompts and about 1% of web visits.

Claude

Fastest-rising prompt share

Its share of US AI prompts rose from 2% in January to 11% in June, and its US audience from about 2M to 10M monthly visitors over the year (Comscore). Reach is still small at 9%.

Quarter in Review

Commentary · October 2026

The AI assistant market stopped being a one-horse race this year. ChatGPT still gets the most activity, but its share of AI prompts in Comscore's US panel fell from 70% in January to 50% in June. That is a falling share of a growing market: about 99 million Americans visited ChatGPT in June, up from 59 million a year earlier. Similarweb's web-visit data shows a smaller share drop, and its monthly readings suggest the slide paused over the summer.

Gemini has caught up on reach. In a June survey of US adults who have heard of AI tools, 46% said they had used Gemini in the past month, about the same as the 45% who used ChatGPT. Among recent AI users, 39% named Gemini the tool they use most, against 40% for ChatGPT (Verasight). It still gets a smaller share of prompts and web visits. Its next test is turning reach into habit.

Claude is gaining share fastest, especially at work. Its reach is still small at 9%, but its share of US AI prompts rose from 2% to 11% between January and June, and more businesses in Ramp's customer base now pay Anthropic than any other AI vendor. Recon Analytics finds about half of paid work AI subscriptions are paid by employees themselves, so some of this demand starts outside company budgets.

Copilot is the open question. Microsoft reports more than 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats, up from about 20 million a quarter earlier, with usage per person rising. Independent surveys still find few workers name it their main AI tool. Most Copilot use happens inside Word, Outlook and Teams, which the public trackers cannot see, so seats are growing faster than the outside evidence of preference.

What leaders should do now

Check actual usage against licenses before the next AI renewal.
Plan for more than one assistant. Employees already use several.
Bring self-paid AI tools under your security and data policies.
Measure adoption every quarter, not once.

Add your company to the next edition

Commentary by Alejandro Mainetto. Figures are from the sources in this Atlas. The interpretation is the author's.

Edition section

Consumer edition

How people use the four assistants, measure by measure, plus the monthly signal.

Five measures, as published

% as reported by each source

Each bar shows the percentage the source published, with no adjustment. The first three come from surveys that ask people what they use and prefer. The last two measure activity and include other AI tools. When an assistant's bars differ, its standing depends on what you measure.

When and where: Verasight surveyed US adults on June 18 and 19, 2026 (used and most used). YouGov surveyed US AI users in July 2026 (preferred). Comscore measured prompts in its US panel in June 2026. Similarweb measured worldwide web visits in May 2026. The page was updated October 7, 2026, but the readings come from these months.

Reading the bars: each measure has a different base, shown in the table below, so compare assistants within one measure rather than one measure against another.

Apps and built-in AI: Similarweb counts website visits only. It misses the ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini mobile apps and Gemini built into Android and Google Search, so it understates assistants used mainly through apps or phones, Gemini above all. The surveys count use on any device.

* Copilot: excludes use inside Word, Outlook, Teams and Excel, which these trackers cannot see. Microsoft's own seat counts are in the Workplace edition.

Survey readings carry sampling error. At 95% confidence before design effects, Verasight's 45% for ChatGPT is about ±2.4 points (1,622 respondents) and its most-used figures about ±2.8 points (1,158). Treat smaller gaps as ties.

Share is not size

Comscore · US monthly visitors, desktop and mobile, millions

Shares can fall while audiences grow. Every assistant's US audience grew over the year to June 2026, including ChatGPT's, whose share of prompts fell.

Assistant	Jun 2025	Jun 2026	Change
ChatGPT	59M	99M	+68%
Gemini	18M	30M	+67%
Copilot*	32M	36M	+13%
Claude	2M	10M	+400%

Source: Comscore Q2 2026 AI Intelligence Report, visitors in June 2025 and June 2026. Visitor counts measure reach on websites and apps in Comscore's US panel, not how much each person uses the tool.

What each measure counts

Who is in the denominator

Measure	Source	Who is counted	Adds to 100?
Used, past 30 days	Verasight, Jun 2026	US adults who have heard of at least one AI tool (n 1,622)	No: people use several
Most-used tool	Verasight, Jun 2026	US adults who used any AI tool in the past 30 days (n 1,158)	One choice, other tools included
Preferred tool	YouGov, Jul 2026	US AI users	One choice, other tools included
Share of AI prompts	Comscore, Jun 2026	Prompts in a US panel, all AI assistants	Share of all AI tools
Share of AI web visits	Similarweb, May 2026	Worldwide visits to gen-AI websites	Share of all AI tools

These measures cover different people and places, so the Atlas compares them side by side and does not divide one by another.

Monthly signal

Similarweb, worldwide web visits

ChatGPT gained share in July and August while Gemini slipped. Claude and Copilot are not reported month by month in this series.

Source: Similarweb figures as reported by OfficeChai, Sep 7, 2026. Reposts of Similarweb data sometimes label months differently. These follow OfficeChai's labels.

Edition section

Workplace edition

How companies and employees adopt AI: usage at work, which AI vendors businesses pay, and licensed versus chosen tools.

What leaders should take from it

Half of US employees use AI at work, at least occasionally. In May 2026, 52% used it a few times a year or more, up from 40% a year earlier. Regular use is lower: 30% use it a few times a week or more, and 15% use it daily (Gallup).
Seats and choice tell different stories. Microsoft reports more than 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats at the end of June 2026, up from about 20 million in March. Yet in surveys of US workers, only 4% named Copilot their main work tool in June 2026, and in late 2025 most workers who had both Copilot and ChatGPT chose ChatGPT (Recon Analytics). Measure use per seat, not seats.
More businesses now pay Anthropic than OpenAI. Among businesses in Ramp's customer base, the share paying Anthropic rose from 21.7% in January, passed OpenAI in May and reached 43.8% vs 39.8% in August. This counts businesses paying each vendor, not dollars spent. It includes API purchases and leans toward startups and mid-market companies.
Many employees pay their own way. About half of paid work AI subscriptions are paid by workers themselves, and 29% of people who use AI at work pay personally for a premium version of their main tool (Recon Analytics, March 2025 to February 2026). Self-paid use is not necessarily unauthorized, but it may sit outside company data and security policies.

Employees using AI at work

Gallup · quarterly · % of US employees

Few times a year or moreFew times a week or moreDaily

Businesses paying each AI vendor

Ramp AI Index · monthly · % of businesses on Ramp

The dashed gray line is the share of businesses paying for any AI tool at all: 56.1% in August. The colored lines show the share paying each vendor. A business can pay several.

Any AI (total)OpenAIAnthropicGoogle

Vendor level: counts any paid subscription or API spend, so it is not assistant usage. Microsoft Copilot is invisible here because it is billed inside Microsoft 365. Spend routed through cloud marketplaces (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) is credited to the cloud provider, and enterprise contracts paid outside Ramp are not seen, so these counts reflect businesses buying directly, many through APIs. Figures are Ramp's current series as read on Oct 7, 2026. Ramp revises past months as its sample grows, so they can differ from earlier press coverage. The population is businesses in Ramp's customer base, which skews toward startups and mid-market companies, not all US businesses.

Licensed vs chosen

Recon Analytics · Jul 2025 to Jan 2026

Of US paid users with workplace access to each tool, the share who adopt it as their main tool. Recon did not report this measure for Claude (Jul 2025 to Jan 2026, published Feb 4, 2026).

ChatGPT

83.1%

Copilot

35.8%

Gemini

34%

Microsoft-reported paid seats

30M+

Microsoft 365 Copilot, quarter ended Jun 30, 2026, up from about 20M a quarter earlier. Microsoft does not disclose daily use per seat.

The survey shares cover Jul 2025 to Jan 2026, before Microsoft's fastest seat growth. The next Recon release will show whether more seats changed what workers choose.

Primary work AI tool

Recon Analytics · June 2026

Share of US respondents naming each as their number-one AI tool for work. ChatGPT slipped from 25% in August 2025, while Claude rose from about 0.4%.

ChatGPT

21%

Gemini

Copilot

Claude

2.3%

Paid by workers themselves

About half

of paid work AI subscriptions, March 2025 to February 2026 (Recon Analytics). Self-paid use is not necessarily unauthorized, but it may sit outside company policies.

Sources: Recon Analytics, Aug 4, 2026 and Recon Analytics work AI study.

The Atlas executive pulse

About 2 minutes · quarterly

Public data shows what people use, not what companies provide or what their employees actually adopt. Take a two-minute survey about AI at your company and receive the aggregate results with the next edition. No company or person is ever named.

How your answers are used

What we collect: your three answers plus your name, role, company, company revenue band and work email.
How we use it: answers are combined with other companies' answers and reported only in aggregate. No company or person is named, and results for a group are shown only once at least 30 companies have responded.
Your contact details: used only to send you the results and occasional Atlas updates. They are never sold or shared, never published, and every email includes a way to unsubscribe.
Your choices: to see, correct or delete your response or contact details, email amainetto@gmail.com. Requests are handled within 30 days.
Where it is stored: survey answers are stored in Google Forms. Benchmark requests are delivered by email through FormSubmit. Neither is used for advertising.

Take the 2-minute surveyResults appear here once at least 30 companies respond. They describe the companies that took part, not a representative sample.

Sources and update cadence

Only public releases are used

Ten sources. Six publish on a fixed schedule and keep the Atlas current: three monthly (Similarweb, Ramp, StatCounter) and three quarterly (Comscore, Gallup, Microsoft). Four publish periodically (Verasight, Pew, YouGov, Recon Analytics). Their readings are dated and refreshed when a new wave appears. StatCounter is shown in the data only as a signal. Each link goes to the latest release used. Every individual reading is linked in Method and data.

Source	What it feeds	Population	Cadence	Latest reading
Comscore AI Intelligence Report	Activity: share of AI prompts	US panel	Quarterly	Jun 2026 (pub. Sep 22)
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Activity: share of gen-AI web visits	Worldwide web	Monthly	Aug 2026 (reported Sep 7)
Ramp AI Index	Workplace: businesses paying each vendor	Businesses in Ramp's customer base	Monthly	Aug 2026 (read Oct 7)
Gallup AI at work indicator	Workplace: employees using AI	US employees	Quarterly	May 2026 wave
Microsoft quarterly earnings	Workplace: paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats	Worldwide, company-reported	Quarterly	Jun 2026 quarter (reported Jul 29)
StatCounter AI chatbot share	Signal: click-outs from chatbots	US sites	Monthly	Sep 2026
Verasight AI surveys	Used in past 30 days, and most-used tool	US adults who know an AI tool	Periodic	Jun 2026
Pew Research Center	Ever used (check)	US adults	Periodic	Feb 2026
YouGov AI brand rankings	Preferred tool	US AI users	Periodic	Jul 2026
Recon Analytics AI Pulse (free insights)	Workplace: licensed vs chosen	US adults	Periodic	Jun 2026 (pub. Aug 4)

Release calendar and changelog

Date	Item	Detail
Est. Nov 2026	Gallup Aug wave	Expected from Gallup's quarterly pattern. Publication lags the wave.
Est. mid-Oct 2026	Ramp AI Index	Monthly. Recent releases came on Aug 12 and Sep 9.
Est. Dec 2026	Comscore Q3 report	Q1 came Jun 2, Q2 Sep 22. Q3 use is scored on release.
Oct 7, 2026	Edition 1 · Method v1.1	First public edition. Published percentages are the primary view. Engagement and loyalty ratios and archetype labels from the v1.0 draft were removed because they combined measures covering different people and places, and the experimental two-source composite was dropped for the same reason. Added Verasight\'s most-used measure, Comscore audience sizes and a link from every reading to its release. Ramp figures use Ramp\'s current revised series, in which Anthropic passes OpenAI in May, not April. Comscore prompt shares were checked against the Q2 report.

Method

Method v1.1

Each source's published percentage, unchanged

Used in the past 30 days: % of US adults who have heard of at least one AI tool (Verasight, June 2026). People use several assistants, so these do not add to 100. Pew's February 2026 survey of all US adults is a check.
Most used: the one tool used most, among US adults who used any AI tool in the past 30 days (Verasight, same survey).
Preferred: share naming each as the tool they like most (YouGov, US AI users). Most used and preferred are different questions and are kept apart.
Activity: Comscore share of AI prompts (US panel) and Similarweb share of gen-AI web visits (worldwide). Both include AI tools beyond these four.
Snapshots: each reading is one month or one survey field period, labeled where it appears. They are not quarterly averages. Nothing is carried forward or interpolated.
No ratios between measures: dividing activity by reach mixes US and worldwide data and different populations, so it cannot show how heavily individual people use a tool. The Atlas does not compute engagement or loyalty ratios.
Precision: survey figures carry sampling error of roughly ±1 to ±3 points. Panel and traffic figures are estimates by their publishers. Differences between sources are shown for context, not as a statistical test, so small month-to-month changes should be read with caution.
Revisions: if a publisher revises a figure, the Atlas updates it and logs the change. Method changes raise the method version.

What the Atlas leaves out

Microsoft 365 Copilot inside Word, Outlook, Teams and Excel. This understates Copilot's use share. Microsoft's own seat counts are shown in the workplace edition instead. GitHub Copilot and Claude Code are also excluded as products in their own right.
Most native mobile app activity in the use lens.
Ramp's vendor figures include API spend. They describe businesses in Ramp's customer base paying a vendor, not people using an assistant or US businesses as a whole.
Secondary citations: where a publisher's own page could not be read (Similarweb's June to August posts and Microsoft's prior-quarter seat count of about 20 million), the reading cites the news report it came from.

Underlying observations

Source	Measure	Measured	Published	ChatGPT	Gemini	Copilot*	Claude	Note
Comscore AI Intelligence Report	Share of AI prompts	Jan 2026	Sep 22, 2026	70	17	5	2	From the Q2 report, one definition for both months. Checked against the report
Comscore AI Intelligence Report	Share of AI prompts	Jun 2026	Sep 22, 2026	50	30	5	11
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Share of gen-AI web visits	Feb 2026	Aug 18, 2026	62.7	24.4	1.1	3.4	Fixed-domain compilation (Momentic)
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Share of gen-AI web visits	May 2026	Aug 18, 2026	53.9	27.9	1.3	9.2	Fixed-domain compilation (Momentic)
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Share of gen-AI web visits	Jun 2026	Sep 7, 2026	52.7	27.8	n/a	n/a	As reported by OfficeChai
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Share of gen-AI web visits	Jul 2026	Sep 7, 2026	54.2	26.5	n/a	n/a	As reported by OfficeChai
Similarweb gen AI traffic share	Share of gen-AI web visits	Aug 2026	Sep 7, 2026	55.5	25.6	n/a	n/a	As reported by OfficeChai
Verasight AI surveys	Used in past 30 days	Jun 18 to 19, 2026	Jun 2026	45	46	20	9	% of US adults who have heard of at least one AI tool (n 1,622)
Verasight AI surveys	Most-used tool	Jun 18 to 19, 2026	Jun 2026	40	39	9	4	% of US adults who used an AI tool in past 30 days (n 1,158)
Pew Research Center	Ever used	Feb 17 to 23, 2026	Jun 17, 2026	44	24	17	6	% of all US adults (n 5,119)
YouGov AI brand rankings	Preferred tool	Feb 2026	Aug 2026	39.6	11.4	5.2	5.3	Derived: July value minus published Feb to Jul change
YouGov AI brand rankings	Preferred tool	Jul 2026	Aug 2026	33.7	18.2	8.2	6.1
Comscore AI Intelligence Report	US monthly visitors, desktop + mobile (millions)	Jun 2025	Sep 22, 2026	59	18	32	2	Q2 2026 report, visitors chart
Comscore AI Intelligence Report	US monthly visitors, desktop + mobile (millions)	Jun 2026	Sep 22, 2026	99	30	36	10	Q2 2026 report, visitors chart
StatCounter AI chatbot share	Share of chatbot referrals	Sep 2026	Oct 2026	75.17	13.26	6.64	1.81	Referral page views. Signal only
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Jan 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	41.07	6.12	n/a	21.69	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 46.96. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Feb 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	41.17	6.33	n/a	27.47	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 49.1. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Mar 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	40.28	5.94	n/a	34.13	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 51.26. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Apr 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	39.63	6.15	n/a	38.57	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 52.98. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	May 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	39.54	6.11	n/a	41.01	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 54.17. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Jun 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	39.48	6.39	n/a	42.39	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 54.95. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Jul 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	39.68	6.24	n/a	43.45	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 55.71. Ramp current series, revised
Ramp AI Index	% of businesses on Ramp paying vendor	Aug 2026	Read Oct 7, 2026	39.76	6.15	n/a	43.78	Vendor level (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic columns). Any AI vendor 56.13. Ramp current series, revised

Workplace readings

Source	Measure	Period	Value
Gallup	% of US employees using AI at work: few times a year or more / few times a week or more / daily	May 2026 wave	52% / 30% / 15%
Microsoft	Paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats	Quarter ended Jun 30, 2026 (pub. Jul 29)	Over 30 million
Microsoft (via UC Today)	Paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats, prior quarter	Quarter ended Mar 31, 2026 (pub. Apr 29)	About 20 million
Recon Analytics	Paid users with workplace access who adopt the tool as main: ChatGPT / Copilot / Gemini	Jul 2025 to Jan 2026 (pub. Feb 4, 2026)	83.1% / 35.8% / 34.0%
Recon Analytics	Copilot share of US paid AI subscribers (primary platform)	Jul 2025 → Jan 2026	18.8% → 11.5%
Recon Analytics	Primary work AI tool: ChatGPT / Gemini / Copilot / Claude	Jun 2026 (pub. Aug 4, 2026)	21% / about 8% / about 4% / 2.3%
Recon Analytics	Paid work AI subscriptions paid by workers, and work AI users paying personally for premium	Mar 2025 to Feb 2026	About half, and 29%

About the author

Alejandro Mainetto

Senior Advisor to Private Equity in AI and Technology. Alejandro serves as Partner and Interim Chief AI Officer at CXO Partners and is the founder of Scient One, an enterprise AI and software firm. He has led technology for more than 30 years and helps PE-backed and mid-market companies turn AI licenses into adoption and measurable results.

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