Is the AI voice agent market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▼ Shrinking
- Visits, year on year, without PolyAI
- -15%
- Visits, last six months
- -42%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -2.6%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 9 AI voice 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 602,538 visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, PolyAI; without it, visits are down 15% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 333% in a year while another lost 95% 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 voice 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 Google603Kvisits-24% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US43.5Ksearches-3% vs October 2025
- Top five sites97.4%of visitsfastest grower: Retell AI
- Expected in October624Kvisitslikely 508K to 741K
- The AI voice agent market is shrinking as of September 2026.
- The 9 AI voice agent sites RankDude tracks got 602,538 visits from Google search in September 2026, 24% fewer visits than in September 2025, or 15% fewer without PolyAI.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 43,490 times in September 2026, about the same as in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI voice agent sites get 97.4% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI voice agent site over the year: Retell AI, +333% (19.8K to 85.7K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: Regal, -95% (27.9K to 1.5K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 624K visits, likely between 508K and 741K.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 15 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI voice agent sites than a year ago?
Down 24% on a year ago; down 18% on August 2026
No. The 9 tracked AI voice agent sites got 602,538 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 24% fewer visits than in September 2025, or 15% fewer without PolyAI, and 18% fewer visits than in August 2026.
The highest month of the last two years was April 2026, with 1,165,104 visits; September 2026 is 48% below it. In the US, visits were 141,000, down 33% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI voice agent sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
603K
-23.9% on a year ago
United States, this month
141K
-32.7% on a year ago
Two-year high
1.2M
April 2026
US share of visits
23.4%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
Visits are lower than a year ago and lower than in August 2026, so the fall is still going. Name searches held about level (-3%) and Google Trends interest in the term held about level (0%), so the drop looks like a few big sites losing Google rankings, not people losing interest.
2.Are people searching for AI voice agent sites by name?
About level with October 2025 (-3%); 43.5K name searches a month in the US
About as many as before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI voice agent sites 43,490 times in September 2026, about the same as 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.
USName searches a month for AI voice agent sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI voice agent sites by name, searches a month
Retell AI22.2K a month
Vapi12.1K a month
Bland AI8.1K a month
Synthflow1.0K a month
SquadStack90 a month
Miles explains
Name searches are level, so the regular users are still there.
3.Which AI voice agent sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 97.4% of all visits
The five most-visited AI voice agent sites get 97.4% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Retell AI, from 19,791 to 85,678 visits (+333%). Steepest fall: Regal, from 27,943 to 1,547 visits (-95%).
Growing fastest, year on year
- Retell AI85.7K visits+333%
Cresta7.7K visits+9%
Falling fastest, year on year
Regal1.5K visits-95%- SquadStack4.0K visits-85%
- Bland AI9.0K visits-45%
- Vapi50.7K visits-44%
PolyAI433K visits-27%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.