Google’s AI race with OpenAI is suddenly looking much tighter. Gemini has surged to 950 million monthly active users, putting it within striking distance of ChatGPT’s roughly 1 billion users and turning what once looked like a runaway lead into a closer contest.

The new figure came in Alphabet’s second-quarter earnings report, and multiple outlets framed it as a major jump from the 750 million users Google disclosed in February.¹ Business Insider also noted that Gemini was at about 650 million users last October, suggesting Google has been scaling the product quickly over a matter of months.²

Google’s case is that the growth is not just about headline user numbers, but product momentum. On the earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai said Gemini users have tripled over the past year and argued that “users love new agentic features like Daily Brief and our personalized agent, Gemini Spark, which is now available in the U.S. and internationally.”³ TechCrunch also pointed to Google’s broader AI push, including an AI-heavy overhaul of Search and lower operating costs for AI features, as signs that Gemini is benefiting from the company’s wider ecosystem rather than standing alone.⁴

The other side of the story is that OpenAI still appears to be ahead, even if by a narrowing margin. Business Insider cited recent Sensor Tower data putting ChatGPT at around 1 billion monthly users,² while TechCrunch said ChatGPT crossed that mark in June and remains the benchmark Gemini is chasing.⁴ That leaves Google with momentum, but not yet the lead.

The public messaging reflects that confidence. Pichai posted a terse “1B next!” on X,Sundar Pichai (sundarpichai)⁵ while Sam Altman amplified a post celebrating that “a billion users can now create and publish websites from their phones with ChatGPT Work.”Sam Altman (sama)⁶ Together, the posts capture the current state of the AI assistant fight: Google is closing fast, but OpenAI is still defending the top spot.