AI research assistant statistics, October 2026

Four numbers for October 2026, each counted over the month. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 124 AI research assistant sites I track. Tap one for the details.

• Visits from Google104Mvisits+21% vs a year ago
• Google searches6.6Ksearchesfor "ai research assistant"
• Most visited site90MvisitsScreener, 86% of all
• Expected in November104Mvisits+0.01% vs last month

• 104,088,164 Google visits went to the 124 AI research assistant sites RankDude tracks in October 2026, 21% more than a year earlier (37% fewer without Screener).
• Shrinking: the AI research assistant market is shrinking, but name searches are up 20% since October 2025.
• 6,600 searches a month for “ai research assistant” worldwide, 29% of them in the US (Google Ads, 12-month average).
• 86% of all visits go to Screener, the most-visited AI research assistant; the five most-visited take 94.3%.
• 3% of visits come from the United States, followed by India, Canada and the United Kingdom.
• 104,101,528 visits expected in November 2026, likely between 96M and 112M.

Source: DataForSEO, Google Ads and Google Trends, October 2026, compiled by RankDude.

Shrinking, but name searches are up 20% since October 2025.

Over two years, visits went from 59M in November 2024 to a high of 128M in April 2026, and stand at 104M in October 2026. Much of the year’s change is one site, Screener, which is why I also look at the market without it.

Visits, year on year

-37%

Visits, last six months

-19%

Name searches, US

+20%

Busiest month (2 years)

April 2026, 128M visits

Miles explains

I only call a market growing when visits and name searches agree. Here visits are down and name searches are up, so they don’t agree yet.

Open the AI research assistant market demand page

“ai research assistant” is searched about 6,600 times a month worldwide, 29% of it in the US.

Google Trends barely registered “ai research assistant” until June 2025; interest then climbed to its peak in June 2026. Americans make 29% of the searches but only 3% of the visits, because the big sites also draw heavily from India, Canada and United Kingdom.

Searches a month, US

1,900

Google Trends now

10/100 -78%

Five-year peak

96/100 in June 2026

Miles explains

Google Trends shows direction, not volume. Interest is lower than a year ago, and I only trust that when the visits move the same way.

Open the AI research assistant search trends page

More visits than a year ago only because of Screener, more people searching by name, and the next six months look flat.

The fastest growers over the year, Paperguide, PubMed.ai and ResearchPal, each grew several times over, usually from a small base. The losers, led by Logically, lost most of their search visits (-100%).

Visits vs September 2026

+2%

Biggest gain this month

Noiz +135%

Biggest loss this month

Dr.Oracle -42%

Miles explains

Huge percentages like Paperguide’s +1200% usually mean one site won a big Google ranking from a small start. I watch whether it holds the next month.

Open the AI research assistant monthly analysis page

I expect November 2026 to be about the same as October 2026, and the next six months to look flat.

The forecast carries the level of recent months forward, not the trend line, because that version missed least when tested on past months. November is usually a quieter month than average for searches, but the calendar did not improve the forecast, so it is left out.

Expected in November 2026

104,101,528 visits

Likely range

96M to 112M

Expected in May 2027

104M +0.01%

Past forecasts in range

5 of 6 months

Miles explains

Read the range, not the single number: tested on the last 6 months, my method landed inside its range 5 times.

Open the AI research assistant monthly forecast page

The most visited is Screener, with 90 million visits a month, 86% of all visits.

Screener and UpToDate together hold 89% of all visits. Below the top five the market is long and thin: the other 119 sites share 5.7%.

Top five sites

94.3% of all visits

Visits from the US

3%

Largest markets outside the US

India, Canada and United Kingdom

Sites tracked

124

Miles explains

Screener alone has 86% of all visits. That’s a big lead, but one Google update can close it fast.

Open the AI research assistant industry report page

Yes. Every number on these pages comes from two CSV files, free to download.

sites.csv has one row per site: its Google US position for “ai research assistant”, Tranco rank, Chrome UX tier, visits from Google worldwide and in the US, name searches, Domain Rating and referring domains, with the month each figure covers. market.csv has the monthly totals across the tracked sites: visits worldwide and in the US, name searches and referring domains. Blanks mean the source had no figure, never zero.

Cite as: Miles Foster, “AI Research Assistant Statistics, October 2026”, RankDude, https://rankdude.ai/statistics/ai-research-assistant