Is the AI agent market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▲ Growingbut name searches are down 27% since October 2025
- Visits, year on year, without Manus
- +48%
- Visits, last six months
- +95%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -27%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 9 AI agent sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In September 2026 they got about 3.2 million visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, Manus; without it, visits are up 48% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 5233% in a year while another lost 86% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for October 2026.
AI agent market demand: key numbers, September 2026
Four numbers for September 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 9 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google3.2Mvisits+113% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US55.3Ksearches-27% vs October 2025
- Top five sites98.6%of visitsfastest grower: Skywork
- Expected in October3.1Mvisitslikely 2.5M to 3.7M
- The AI agent market is growing as of September 2026, but name searches are down 27% since October 2025.
- The 9 AI agent sites RankDude tracks got 3,152,564 visits from Google search in September 2026, 113% more visits than in September 2025, or 48% more without Manus.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 55,310 times in September 2026, 27% fewer searches than in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI agent sites get 98.6% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI agent site over the year: Skywork, +5233% (12.9K to 687K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: AgentGPT, -86% (17.5K to 2.5K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 3.1M visits, likely between 2.5M and 3.7M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 15 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI agent sites than a year ago?
Up 113% on a year ago; up 18% on August 2026
Yes. The 9 tracked AI agent sites got 3,152,564 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 113% more visits than in September 2025, or 48% more without Manus, and 18% more visits than in August 2026.
September 2026 is the highest month of the last two years. In the US, visits were 252,917, up 78% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI agent sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
3.2M
+112.7% on a year ago
United States, this month
253K
+77.7% on a year ago
Two-year high
3.2M
September 2026
US share of visits
8%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
More visits than a year ago means new people are still finding AI agent sites through Google. Most of that growth is one site, Manus; without it, visits are up 48% on a year ago.
2.Are people searching for AI agent sites by name?
Down 27% on October 2025; 55.3K name searches a month in the US
Fewer than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI agent sites 55,310 times in September 2026, 27% fewer searches than in October 2025. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose. The term “ai agents” itself gets about 49,500 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for AI agent sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI agent sites by name, searches a month
Skywork27.1K a month
Genspark18.1K a month
Sintra5.4K a month
Agnes AI1.9K a month
Flowith1.9K a month
MiniMax Agent590 a month
Miles explains
Name searches are down, so fewer people are coming back on purpose. Better Google rankings will not fix that.
3.Which AI agent sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 98.6% of all visits
The five most-visited AI agent sites get 98.6% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Skywork, from 12,875 to 686,669 visits (+5233%). Steepest fall: AgentGPT, from 17,487 to 2,497 visits (-86%).
Growing fastest, year on year
- Skywork687K visits+5233%
Manus1.3M visits+429%- Sintra24.9K visits+42%
Falling fastest, year on year
AgentGPT2.5K visits-86%- Genspark943K visits-20%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.