OpenAI’s ChatGPT is wooing users while Google’s Gemini tries to outsmart it

But CEO Sam Altman isn’t done. He’s ushering ChatGPT into the next phase of growth, juicing engagement by adding new personality features—and even erotic content—as he scrambles to cover his extraordinary costs. Luckily for him, ChatGPT’s domination of the chatbot market looks set to continue even as Alphabet’s Google creeps up the rankings.

Google’s own ChatGPT clone, known as Gemini, captured the limelight with an update in November that jumped ahead in industry benchmarks, seeming to surpass its rival. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted that after two hours of testing Gemini 3, he would permanently switch from ChatGPT after using it daily for three years. “The leap is insane,” he tweeted. “Reasoning, speed, images, video… everything is sharper and faster.”

But in terms of market share, Gemini is still far behind. In October, there were 153 million monthly visits to its web-based version, according to data from market-research firm Similarweb. ChatGPT got 1.1 billion. In recent months, use of OpenAI’s tool has also been growing faster than Gemini’s, as the same data-set shows.

There are a few reasons why Gemini’s growth probably won’t accelerate, leaving it a distant but respectable second over the next couple of years. Despite the impressive credentials as a ‘better’ chatbot—and the huge distributive power that Google has to integrate Gemini into search and its Android mobile operating system—Google has often struggled to replicate the network effects that propel an online platform to stratospheric user numbers.

Take its efforts to build a social network in the 2010s with Google+. A befuddling design and unclear purpose meant users wouldn’t stay on the site, and it flopped. Google Wave and Google Buzz also failed to entice users, in part because the company’s strength is in utility—think search, email and maps—not designing the habit-forming algorithms that keep people coming back to social platforms.

Google’s AI chief, former neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, has long prioritized scientific achievement over product engagement. That’s another reason why Gemini will likely keep improving on benchmarks while struggling to attract as many users as ChatGPT. OpenAI’s Altman, on the other hand, is the former head of a startup accelerator, Y Combinator, and has the instincts of someone who has lived and breathed Silicon Valley’s ‘blitzscaling’ mantra: Grow rapidly and experiment on the fly to achieve market dominance, and then monetize it.

To that end, he has updated ChatGPT with ‘persistent memory’ to make conversations more personalized, and has said users will be able to give the chatbot a personality like friendly or nerdy, or hold ‘erotic’ conversations once age-gating is fully rolled out in December. OpenAI has also announced group chats, so users can bring friends or colleagues into a conversation with ChatGPT.

These bells and whistles are aimed first at expanding the chatbot’s user base, then helping convert free users into subscribers or encouraging employers to use it more.

Google is giving Gemini whizzy new features too. But they are more focused on making it a smart assistant with, for instance, the ability to gauge intent from shorter prompts or to plug into tools like Google Docs and Google Calendar.

By leaning into its role as a conversational and outwardly empathetic companion, ChatGPT is capitalizing instead on people’s embrace of chatbots at a time when businesses have been more hesitant.

That’s no catastrophe for Google. With its search engine still performing well against rival chatbots, a steady cloud unit and an AI chip business that’s starting to flourish, it can afford slower, gradual growth for Gemini. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai can be content steering an oil tanker while Altman frantically pilots a speedboat.

With OpenAI expecting to spend $115 billion through 2029, growing ChatGPT and converting its free users into $20-a-month subscribers is both existential and urgent. Altman has capitalized on his chatbot’s first-mover advantage but can’t afford to stop racing ahead. No wonder, roughly 20% of OpenAI’s workforce used to work at Meta Platforms, a company with a long history of maximizing stickiness.

ChatGPT has now entered its engagement era. While Google is betting on being smarter, OpenAI is gambling on being harder to quit. ©Bloomberg

The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology.