FlexOS.work conducted research on generative AI platforms, revealing the most popular platforms. While ChatGPT ranks first, many other AI platforms also attract millions of users. Download our list of the top 150 AI tools now.
FlexOS's research report “Generative AI at Work” concluded that ChatGPT is in the lead based on a survey of knowledge workers.
Our latest report “Top 150 Most Popular AI Tools Globally” further confirms this: whether through website traffic or search rankings (the two metrics used by FlexOS for analysis), ChatGPT is undoubtedly the frontrunner.
But aside from ChatGPT, many other platforms have millions of users—many of whom may not have heard of them. For example, have you heard of Brainly, Chai, or WriteSonic?
It's time to dive into the world of AI; let's explore the popular products and hidden gems in the generative AI space together.
Key Findings from “Top 150 Most Popular AI Tools Globally”#
Before we delve into the data, here are some key insights we gained from the research:
While people talk about AI applications in "writing and images," the most widely used areas are actually "AI chat partners" and "homework help."#
Character.AI – a dark horse more popular than Google's Bard
Our analysis shows that there are some unexpected winners among the top 10 AI tools. (For the complete top 150 list, see here.)
Although we often hear discussions about creating text and images, three of the top 10 applications belong to the education sector: Brainly, CourseHero, and TurnItIn.
In the social and chat application category, Character.AI stands out, ranking fourth among all platforms.
Some unexpected AI winners include:
- Grammarly AI ranks third, providing writing guidance and support to 30 million users. In our previous report “Generative AI at Work,” Grammarly was rated as the second most used generative AI tool by knowledge workers in the U.S.
- Character.AI as a breakthrough hit ranks fourth, offering over 18 million character options and tools for learning new languages or practicing interviews. Reports indicate that users spend an average of over 2 hours a day interacting with these AI partners.
- Brainly ranks sixth globally among AI tools, allowing students to take pictures of homework and receive expert-verified help. AI educational tools like Brainly demonstrate how a generation is growing up in an environment where AI is a natural part of their daily lives, profoundly impacting how we will work in the future.
The complete top 10 is as follows:
The usage of AI tools far exceeds people's expectations—surpassing Netflix, Pinterest, and Twitch.#
According to data analysis from Similarweb based on global web traffic tracking, the AI tools on this list attract over 3 billion visits per month.
Among these, ChatGPT alone accounts for 167 million visits, making up more than half of the total traffic, surpassing Netflix, Microsoft, Pinterest, Twitch, and The New York Times.
The remaining 149 tools account for the remaining 1.5 billion visits, including significant leaders like Bing, Grammarly, Character.AI, and Google’s Bard.
Surprisingly, the usage of AI tools is highly concentrated among a few winners#
Thus, ChatGPT leads with an absolute advantage, accounting for over 50% of the billions of monthly visits.
When including other “general GPT” tools like Bing AI, Bard, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, the situation becomes even more pronounced: they collectively account for 66% of all generative AI usage.
This reflects the immense influence and power of a few major platforms, potentially raising concerns about monopolies and stifled innovation.
Even beyond ChatGPT, tools like Grammarly AI and Character.AI dominate their respective fields, with Grammarly boasting a large user base in writing and editing, while Character.AI leads in social and character interactions.
In many categories, the tools we see have little differentiation from the functionalities offered by these leaders. How should we address the 30th image generation application that adds little compared to the core functionalities of large LLMs?
This suggests that the AI market may need consolidation, with smaller platforms potentially needing to merge or be acquired to compete effectively.
There is an AI for everyone—over 60 AI platforms attract over 1 million visits per month, covering all needs#
From architects (Prome AI) to English learners (ELSA), from video creators (InVideo, RunwayML) to singles looking for AI girlfriends (Candy AI), millions are finding AI platforms that suit their specific needs.
Other AI platforms represented in the Top 150 can:
- Generate videos and animations from text, including “deep fakes”
- Produce audio voice clones
- Represent you in meetings
- Create podcasts
- Generate social content
- Organize your workday
- Train employees
- Create logos
- Answer customer inquiries
- Analyze data
A total of 62 out of the 150 platforms are expected to attract over 1 million visits per month.
The new generation is growing up with AI—employers, take note#
The widespread adoption of tools like Brainly and Coursehero (homework help), along with chat partners on Character.AI, disproportionately attracts the youngest visitor demographic, painting a picture of the future workplace.
When you receive highly personalized help with school assignments, it prepares you for the AI that will work alongside you in the future workplace.
Many leading learning and development platforms are already investing in this technology to assist employees, while startups like Kona are building AI coaching tools for managers.
The younger generation spends an average of two hours a day interacting with AI chat partners, indicating that in the future, we could easily see AI team members integrating and managing alongside human members.
New to AI? Check out our detailed guide on AI in the Workplace.**
What do people most commonly use AI for? The top 5 categories of AI usage#
Categorizing the world’s most commonly used generative AI tools presents an engaging picture.
First, there is the massive scale of ChatGPT and other major AIs: Bard, Bing AI, Copilot, and Claude. Together, they account for 66% of all estimated generative AI usage.
If we exclude ChatGPT and similar tools, we can see the order in which people use generative AI by popularity:
- Writing and Editing: From emails to essays, people have clearly become accustomed to writing with the help of ChatGPT, as well as specialized tools like Grammarly AI (which indeed stands out even among the top 150), Simplified AI (often used by marketing teams), and Copy.AI (recently also targeting marketing roles). Additionally, we see people trying to use “rewriting” tools like ZeroGPT to avoid detection of AI usage, although these tools are also used by “the other side” to detect AI.
- Education: Students and teachers clearly see the power of AI, and you might wonder why we don’t see more workplace applications at the top of the list. Regardless, whether creating quizzes from course materials with tools like Magicschool or getting homework help from Brainly and Coursehero, AI has significantly changed how we learn and teach.
- Social and Character: During a time when the government refers to a “loneliness epidemic,” and after our COVID-19 lockdown days, it’s no surprise that chat-based AI applications like Character.ai and Chai top the list, collectively occupying the largest category as one of the AI tool categories. These tools hope to achieve some of the goals claimed by their founders—helping us become more social in the real world by creating safe spaces to practice communication.
- Research: Whether Google is already feeling uneasy, using AI-driven research tools like Perplexity.ai—which combines GPT-like conversational answers with real links to actual sources (completely different from the fantasy-rich GPTs), ChatPDF—which lets you chat with PDFs, and Consensus—an AI-driven research tool for academic papers, sounds smarter than you already are.
- Image Generators: Like writing and editing, this is a use case we saw in our Generative AI at Work research, and it’s not surprising. Tools like Prome AI allow interior designers and architects to turn sketches into complete renderings.
Without ChatGPT, Bing AI, Bard, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, here’s the breakdown of the top AI categories:
Most Commonly Used AI Tools by Category#
Let’s take a look at the AI tools categorized by the top categories above.
General GPT Tools#
Not surprisingly, ChatGPT ranks first in the general GPT tools category.
When people learn how to use AI, they typically start with ChatGPT or one of its competitors—this is evident.
The category breakdown is as follows:
- ChatGPT (Overall Rank: 1): 76% (of the category)
- Bing AI (2): 16%
- Bard (5): 7%
- Claude (27): 1%
- Microsoft Copilot (46): 0%
ChatGPT's significant lead, with its technology also powering many of the tools in the top 150, may raise concerns about AI monopolies. Given that AI will impact many aspects of our lives, work, and even thinking, the de facto OpenAI monopoly is not without risks.
Moreover, while OpenAI was founded with the intention of guiding AI into the world in a way that benefits humanity, the situation looks less than saintly after the Sam Altman saga.
Regulators, government agencies, and competitors will rightly keep a close eye on the developments of ChatGPT's market share in the coming months and years.
New to AI? Check out our detailed guide on how to use AI.**
Writing and Editing#
As one of the most popular use cases captured in our previous research on Generative AI at Work, writing and editing remain among the most utilized areas for AI.
Tools like Copy.AI and Grammarly are among our favorite AI websites, and the public agrees.
In particular, Grammarly stands out as a massive hit in this category, also ranking fourth overall among the top 150.
The service has nearly 40 million online users per month, not even counting all the usage as a Chrome extension and other integrations.
Grammarly has become an indispensable part of people’s daily work lives, and while these numbers are impressive, they are also understandable.
Other tools in the writing and editing category include:
- Grammarly AI (Overall Rank: 3): 71% (of the category)
- Simplified AI (16): 6%
- ZeroGPT (Rewriter & Detector) (24): 4%
- Copy.AI (32): 3%
- WriteSonic (33): 3%
- Undetectable AI (Rewriter) (36): 3%
- Wordtune (39): 3%
- Jasper.ai (42): 2%
- Rytr.me (53): 1%
- Shortly (92): 0%
Aside from Grammarly, which not only corrects your writing in real-time but also teaches you how to become a better writer over time, the platforms in this category can be roughly divided into two buckets:
- Prompt to Text: You write a short prompt, and the tool generates longer copy for you, from social post headlines to essays.
- AI Rewriters & Detectors: As the name suggests. It rewrites AI-generated copy to make it sound less like AI. But it’s worth noting that the same company often provides AI detection tools for “the other side.”
Some of these tools are targeted at marketers (Copy.AI, Anyword), while others are more general, and some focus on students—clearly including AI rewriters.
Want to explore more essential AI tools for your work? Check out our guide on the best AI websites.**
Education#
From the English speaking coach ELSA to getting homework help from Brainly, this is one of the categories we’ve noticed.
Not only is education the third-largest overall category for AI tools, but the tools used within the category may be unknown to many working professionals.
However, they shouldn’t be unknown, as we can see that many of these platforms can work well in the workplace too.
Among the top AI education tools, we find:
- Brainly (Homework Help) (6): 42%
- CourseHero (Tutoring) (7): 36%
- TurnItIn (AI Detection) (9): 17%
- ELSA (English Coach) (29): 5%
- MagicSchool (Teacher Assistance) (95): 1%
- Caktus (Student Tools) (90): 0%
Three education tools made it into the global top 150 generative AI tools, which is incredible. Let’s take a closer look at these:
- Brainly is a knowledge-sharing community where “millions of students and experts come together to solve their toughest homework.” You scan your homework, and AI provides suggestions. If we had this growing up—I can see it being beneficial for many, especially those who wouldn’t otherwise seek help.
- CourseHero has 30 million course-specific learning materials that it uses to answer questions posed by students from any website. It also summarizes learning questions from YouTube videos and links them to millions of crowdsourced resources on Course Hero for specific courses and exams. (Yes, some consider this cheating—but what kind of world are we learning for!)
- TurnItIn may benefit from the above two platforms as it helps teachers and schools detect AI in submitted homework. (Though they brand it as “empowering students to produce their best, original work,” which we’ve heard or seen as the biggest euphemism.)
Other platforms in this category are also noteworthy.
ELSA guides your English by analyzing your voice, including your speaking abilities. This is huge for many trying to learn English as a second or third language. MagicSchool helps teachers prepare lesson plans, create quizzes, and check homework. Caktus on the other side wraps ChatGPT into practical use cases for students.
In short, this category is both fascinating and exciting, and workplaces should take note—especially L&D departments!
Social and Character#
The fourth largest category consists of a series of websites and tools where you can create virtual characters and chat with them.
Just like in the general GPT and writing categories, there is a big winner in the 'chat with me' AI platform, which is Character.AI.
This platform was founded in 2021 by former Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, and it has already attracted hundreds of millions of users monthly, making it the fourth largest generative AI platform in the world.
These users can choose from 18 million chat “characters,” from Socrates to K-Pop idols, or create their own characters. The platform is so engaging that users often spend hours on it daily.
The entire category includes:
- Character.AI (Overall Rank: 4): 89% (of the category's traffic)
- AI Chat (38): 5%
- Chai (61): 1%
- Candy AI (64): 2%
- Anima (74): 1%
- ChatFAI (76): 1%
- Replika (77): 1%
- ora.ai (86): 0%
- Romantic AI (99): 0%
- DreamTavern (101): 0%
We find that most of these are similar to Character.AI, sometimes spicier, sometimes more anime-oriented, and some more explicitly focused on creating virtual boyfriends and girlfriends. (Yes, some blend all these qualities together.)
Replika is worth mentioning as it has been around longer than most, doing this since 2017. Its founders state that the goal is to address loneliness and social anxiety, recently removing the previously available “intimate” characters.
If you’re not familiar with this category yet, give Character.AI a try—but don’t forget to stay connected with humans too!
Image Generation#
At the end of the most popular generative AI tools category, we find image generation.
Essentially, image generation is one of the most impressive generative AI applications, and we’ve now seen everything from a fake pope in a puffy skirt to AI-generated cyberpunk visuals.
However, in everyday work and life, it seems to be used less than essentials like writing, homework, and chatting with virtual companions.
There is one tool in this category that ranks in the top 10, along with several just outside of it, which are the most commonly used AI image generators:
- DeepAI (10): 19% (of the category's traffic)
- Midjourney (12): 16%
- Canva Image Generator (13): 16%
- Looka (18): 14%
- Adobe Firefly (19): 10%
- Hotpot (21): 9%
- NightCafe (25): 7%
- Soulgen (55): 5%
- Brandmark (56): 1%
- Artflow (70): 1%
Aside from our expectation that image generators would rank lower in the AI application list (but again, remember the non-scientific methodology), it’s worth noting that the traffic in this category is split among many tools.
There are no tools like Character.AI, ChatGPT, or Grammarly dominating all usage.
Instead, tools like DeepAI, Midjourney, and Canva compete for relatively similar percentages of traffic in the category.
However, aside from a few very impressive tools, it seems almost a sea of similarity, with similar text-to-image perspectives, perhaps targeting more specific audiences or use cases, or simply better online marketing.
The Top 150 Most Used Generative AI Platforms Globally#
So, what are the top 150 most popular AI platforms globally, beyond these industry leaders?
From ChatGPT to AI demos to AI companions, here is the complete list of the top 150, introducing fifty at a time:
If we missed you, or your data seems inaccurate, please contact us.
Overview of Research Methodology#
To compile this overview, we reviewed over 200 AI tools mentioned in news articles, online directories, and lists.
We focused on usage by consumers and individual contributors, meaning that large tools managed by a few but used by millions (like most HR technologies) ranked lower in the list.
We may have missed some tools, but we believe this is a comprehensive selection and invite companies we did not cover to submit their listings for our next survey.
We excluded tools that existed before generative AI emerged unless they underwent significant transformations.
Where possible, we prioritized the application versions of websites.
For platforms with multiple uses, we categorized them according to the most commonly used application scenarios based on search data or sub-URL popularity, aside from general GPT tools.
We did not include websites that primarily serve as AI tool indexes without offering proprietary, widely used AI tools.
For some tools, like Bing and Adobe Firefly, we estimated SimilarWeb traffic based on the ratio of Ahrefs to SimilarWeb traffic from the category leaders due to the inability to obtain SimilarWeb data rankings.
Usage estimates: To estimate the usage of these tools (most tools do not report this data), we used the average relative ranking of organic search traffic from Similarweb and Ahrefs as a proxy indicator of usage.
- For Similarweb, we referenced the average monthly visits for the three months prior to the survey date.
- For Ahrefs SEO traffic, we referenced the 30-day organic search volume for the URL or product URL. The survey was conducted on January 28 and 29, 2024.
This is a very preliminary perspective on the popularity of AI tools, primarily out of our curiosity. For some website tools, the usage proxies we adopted may be relatively reliable, as web traffic and search dominance may reflect the usage frequency of tools like Character.AI that are entirely web-based.
For other tools, such as downloadable software (Descript, Microsoft Copilot) and those primarily used through plugins (Grammarly) or applications (Chai, Adobe Firefly), this can only serve as a secondary indication of potential popularity.
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