Name: Google search demand for AI assistant names, US and UK, October 2026
Creator: Mentioned
Published: 2026-10-25
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Key findings

ChatGPT accounts for 90.6% of US searches for AI assistants by name (86.2 million a month) and 96.8% in the UK.
Gemini is a distant second in both: ChatGPT is searched 17× as often in the US and 85× as often in the UK.
Grok is third in both countries — 2.07 million US searches a month, more than Claude, Copilot and Perplexity combined (1.39 million).
In the UK, DeepSeek (151,000) out-searches Copilot (116,000) and Perplexity (107,000), and nearly matches its US volume (161,000) despite the UK’s much smaller population.
Per person, Britons search for ChatGPT about twice as often as Americans: 38.4 million monthly UK searches against 86.2 million in a country with roughly five times the population.

The data

Monthly Google searches for each assistant’s unambiguous brand terms — the ones that can only mean the AI product.

Assistant	Terms counted	US / month	US share	UK / month	UK share
ChatGPT	`chatgpt + chat gpt`	86,230,000	90.6%	38,370,000	96.8%
Gemini	`google gemini + gemini ai`	5,170,000	5.4%	450,000	1.1%
Grok	`grok`	2,070,000	2.2%	240,000	0.6%
Copilot	`microsoft copilot`	643,000	0.7%	116,000	0.3%
Claude	`claude ai`	558,000	0.6%	168,000	0.4%
Perplexity	`perplexity ai`	190,000	0.2%	107,000	0.3%
Meta AI	`meta ai`	166,000	0.2%	15,000	0.0%
DeepSeek	`deepseek`	161,000	0.2%	151,000	0.4%
Mistral	`mistral ai + le chat`	11,900	0.0%	5,800	0.0%

The ambiguous names

Bare “gemini”, “claude”, “copilot” and “perplexity” are much larger, but they mix the AI products with a star sign, a first name, GitHub Copilot and an English word. We report them separately rather than add them in. Ahrefs’ own parent-topic grouping is shown so you can judge the mix.

Search term	US / month	Ahrefs parent topic (US)	UK / month	Ahrefs parent topic (UK)
`gemini`	11,370,000	gemini	989,000	gemini
`claude`	2,680,000	claude	480,000	is claude down
`copilot`	2,470,000	microsoft copilot	990,000	copilot
`perplexity`	1,010,000	ai	254,000	perplexity
`openai`	3,170,000	openai	551,000	openai
`anthropic`	550,000	anthropic	62,000	anthropic

Even counting every bare “gemini” search as the AI product, ChatGPT would still be searched about 5× as often in the US.

What this means for AI visibility

Start with ChatGPT, but don’t stop there. It dominates search interest, so it is the assistant your buyers are most likely to have open. Gemini also reaches people through Google’s own surfaces, which brand searches don’t capture.
Brand searches are not usage. Many people open an assistant from a bookmark or app without searching for it, and Gemini and Copilot are built into products people already use. Treat this as a measure of mindshare, not of market share.
Check each model separately. Assistants disagree about which brands to recommend. Being named by one tells you little about the others — which is why our checks report per model.

Method and limits

Volumes are Ahrefs Keywords Explorer estimates of average monthly Google searches in the US and UK, pulled on October 25, 2026 through our SiteWide connector. We planned 20 countries; our API allowance ran out after two, so this edition covers the US and UK only and we will extend it rather than estimate the rest. “Grok” is counted bare because Ahrefs files it under its own topic, but it may include a small number of unrelated searches. “Le chat” in the UK sits under a typo topic in Ahrefs and is negligible either way. Google searches exclude searches made inside the assistants’ own apps.

Cite this

You are welcome to quote and chart these figures with a link back. Suggested citation: Mentioned, “ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude: Which AI Assistants People Search For in the US and UK,” October 25, 2026, https://mentioned.at/learn/ai-assistant-search-demand. Data and text are published under CC BY 4.0.

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