Most Popular AI Tools in 2026, Ranked by Traffic

What this list covers, and what it misses

• Visits are SimilarWeb estimates of total monthly visits to each website in August 2026, the latest complete month. They are estimates, comparable across sites but not exact. Use in mobile apps, desktop apps and through APIs is not counted, so app-first tools look smaller than they are. “Change” compares Aug 2026 with Jul 2026.
• Websites, not products. Some of the best known AI tools cannot be measured this way because they share a domain with something bigger: Google Gemini (gemini.google.com), NotebookLM and Google AI Studio live on google.com subdomains; Microsoft Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com) on microsoft.com; Tencent Yuanbao (yuanbao.tencent.com) on tencent.com; Baidu's ERNIE Bot (yiyan.baidu.com) on baidu.com; GitHub Copilot on github.com; Claude Code inside claude.ai; OpenAI Codex inside chatgpt.com; and AI features built into Canva, Notion, CapCut, Google Search or Bing count as traffic to those products. They are left out rather than estimated. A brand's second domain is not added to its main one (kimi.ai is separate from kimi.com).
• Coverage. Only the 3,394 websites in our tracked AI set are candidates (3,005 had August 2026 visits), so a popular AI tool on a non-.ai domain that is in none of the engine's AI groups, our profiles, our AI video, music, coding, note-taker and voice lists or our list of well-known AI tools can be missing.
• Left out on purpose: adult and NSFW sites, AI companion and roleplay chat, “uncensored” AI, general editors where AI is one feature (Picsart, Pixlr, like Canva and CapCut above), sites on .ai domains that are not AI products, and short-drama streaming. Every site that would otherwise have made one of the lists is named below with the reason, except adult and NSFW sites, which are only counted.
• Labelled, not left out: Character.AI is a mainstream roleplay chat app that filters sexual content (its community guidelines prohibit pornographic content and nudity, and its models use filters) and has restricted open-ended chat for users under 18, so it is listed with that label. Companion and roleplay sites without those limits stay out.
• Profile pages linked from the tables use TrendBreakouts' monthly dataset, which can lag this list, so their figures can differ.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most popular AI tools in 2026?

By SimilarWeb's estimate of monthly visits in August 2026, the most popular AI tools are ChatGPT (5.6B), Claude (950M), DeepSeek (354M), Grok (210M), OpenAI (204M), Doubao (ByteDance) (160M), Character.AI (160M), DeepL (99M), Perplexity (95M) and Suno (73M). The table on this page lists the top 50. "Popular" here means most visited; it is not a quality rating.

What is the most used AI tool?

ChatGPT by a wide margin: 5.6B visits to chatgpt.com in August 2026, about 6 times the next tool, Claude (950M). Use in mobile apps and through APIs is not counted, so these figures understate tools that are mostly used in an app.

Why are Gemini and Microsoft Copilot not on the list?

The ranking measures websites, and their traffic cannot be separated from the rest of the site they live on: Google Gemini (gemini.google.com), NotebookLM and Google AI Studio live on google.com subdomains; Microsoft Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com) on microsoft.com; Tencent Yuanbao (yuanbao.tencent.com) on tencent.com; Baidu's ERNIE Bot (yiyan.baidu.com) on baidu.com; GitHub Copilot on github.com; Claude Code inside claude.ai; OpenAI Codex inside chatgpt.com; and AI features built into Canva, Notion, CapCut, Google Search or Bing count as traffic to those products. Listing google.com or microsoft.com would credit search and everything else to an AI tool, so these tools are left out rather than guessed at.

Which AI tools are growing fastest right now?

By the TrendBreakouts growth engine's September 2026 ranking (provisional, as the month is not complete yet), the fastest growing AI tools with at least 100K monthly visits are Hermes Agent, Base44, Manus, ForgeGUI and 9Router. The engine scores sustained growth in traffic and brand search demand, so a tool can rank highly even after a one-month dip.

How is the traffic measured?

Visits are SimilarWeb estimates of total monthly visits to each website in August 2026, the latest complete month. They are comparable across sites but not exact, and app or API use is not included. Each listed site was checked by hand to be an AI tool. Adult and NSFW sites (counted, not named), AI companion and "uncensored" chat sites and non-AI sites on .ai domains are left out. Mainstream roleplay chat that filters sexual content, such as Character.AI, is listed with a label saying so.

How often is this list updated?

We aim to refresh it about once a month from the engine's latest data; this version was exported on 2026-10-01. The list is updated in place: there are no dated monthly editions.