Is the AI productivity tools market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▲ Growingbut visits are down 26% since December 2025
- Visits, year on year, without Booking.com
- +9.1%
- Visits, last six months
- -24%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- +28%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 63 AI productivity tools sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In October 2026 they got about 262 million visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, Booking.com; without it, visits are up 9% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 2352% in a year while another lost 100% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for November 2026.
AI productivity tools market demand: key numbers, October 2026
Four numbers for October 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 63 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google262Mvisits-25% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US2.7Msearches+28% vs October 2025
- Top five sites99.1%of visitsfastest grower: iMean AI
- Expected in November260Mvisitslikely 238M to 283M
- The AI productivity tools market is growing as of October 2026, but visits are down 26% since December 2025.
- The 63 AI productivity tools sites RankDude tracks got 261,737,916 visits from Google search in October 2026, 25% fewer visits than in October 2025, or 9% more without Booking.com.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 2,677,210 times in September 2026, 28% more searches than in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI productivity tools sites get 99.1% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI productivity tools site over the year: iMean AI, +2352% (13.8K to 339K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: Fellow, -100% (47.8K to 2 visits a month).
- Forecast for November 2026: about 260M visits, likely between 238M and 283M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 2 November 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI productivity tools sites than a year ago?
Down 25% on a year ago; up 4% on September 2026
Only because of Booking.com. The 63 tracked AI productivity tools sites got 261,737,916 visits from Google search in October 2026. That is 25% fewer visits than in October 2025, or 9% more without Booking.com, and 4% more visits than in September 2026.
The highest month of the last two years was January 2025, with 520,701,470 visits; October 2026 is 50% below it. In the US, visits were 19,139,654, down 42% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI productivity tools sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
262M
-25.3% on a year ago
United States, this month
19M
-42.1% on a year ago
Two-year high
521M
January 2025
US share of visits
7.3%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
Visits are lower than a year ago, but the fall looks like it has stopped: October 2026 was up on September 2026. Google Trends interest in the term fell (-72%), but name searches did not, so some interest has cooled.
2.Are people searching for AI productivity tools sites by name?
Up 28% on October 2025; 2.7M name searches a month in the US
Yes, more than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI productivity tools sites 2,677,210 times in September 2026, 28% more 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 productivity tools” itself gets about 1,300 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for AI productivity tools sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI productivity tools sites by name, searches a month
Miles explains
Name searches are up while visits are down, so people still know where to go. Google Trends interest in the term fell (-72%), so part of the drop may be lower interest too.
3.Which AI productivity tools sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 99.1% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 99.7%
The five most-visited AI productivity tools sites get 99.1% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: iMean AI, from 13,837 to 339,230 visits (+2352%). Steepest fall: Fellow, from 47,766 to 2 visits (-100%).
Growing fastest, year on year
Falling fastest, year on year
Fellow2 visits-100%
Superpowered104 visits-98%
Fathom7.2K visits-87%
TripPlanner AI11.5K visits-86%
Sembly AI7.3K visits-84%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.