AI search engine statistics, October 2026

Four numbers for October 2026, each counted over the month. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 10 AI search engine sites I track. Tap one for the details.

• Visits from Google998Mvisits+260% vs a year ago
• Google searches27.1Ksearchesfor "ai search engine"
• Most visited site919MvisitsChatGPT, 92% of all
• Expected in November1039Mvisits+4% vs last month

• 998,385,210 Google visits went to the 10 AI search engine sites RankDude tracks in October 2026, 260% more than a year earlier (36% more without ChatGPT).
• Growing: the AI search engine market is growing.
• 27,100 searches a month for “ai search engine” worldwide, 45% of them in the US (Google Ads, 12-month average).
• 92% of all visits go to ChatGPT, the most-visited AI search engine; the five most-visited take 99.9%.
• 7.9% of visits come from the United States, followed by India, Germany and Canada.
• 1,038,862,702 visits expected in November 2026, likely between 956M and 1122M.

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

Growing.

Over two years, visits went from 99M in November 2024 to a high of 998M in October 2026, and stand at 998M in October 2026. Much of the year’s change is one site, ChatGPT, which is why I also look at the market without it.

Visits, year on year

+36%

Visits, last six months

+112%

Name searches, US

-1%

Busiest month (2 years)

October 2026, 998M visits

Miles explains

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

Open the AI search engine market demand page

“ai search engine” is searched about 27,100 times a month worldwide, 45% of it in the US.

Google Trends barely registered “ai search engine” until February 2023; interest then climbed to its peak in May 2026. Americans make 45% of the searches but only 7.9% of the visits, because the big sites also draw heavily from India, Germany and Canada.

Searches a month, US

12,100

Google Trends now

23/100 -51%

Five-year peak

89/100 in May 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 search engine search trends page

More visits than a year ago, name searches holding steady, and the next six months look uneven, down and then up.

The fastest growers over the year, Felo AI, ChatGPT and Perplexity, grew fastest, mostly from a smaller base. The losers, led by Kagi, lost most of their search visits (-97%).

Visits vs September 2026

+3%

Biggest gain this month

Felo AI +25%

Biggest loss this month

iAsk -16%

Miles explains

Huge percentages like Felo AI’s +720% usually mean one site won a big Google ranking from a small start. I watch whether it holds the next month.

Open the AI search engine monthly analysis page

I expect November 2026 to be 4% more than October 2026, and the next six months to look up.

The forecast carries the level of recent months forward with the seasonal pattern, because that version missed least when tested on past months. November is usually a busier month than average for searches.

Expected in November 2026

1,038,862,702 visits

Likely range

956M to 1122M

Expected in May 2027

1128M +13%

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 search engine monthly forecast page

The most visited is ChatGPT, with 919 million visits a month, 92% of all visits.

ChatGPT and DuckDuckGo AI Chat together hold 98% of all visits. Below the top five the market is long and thin: the other 5 sites share 0.1%.

Top five sites

99.9% of all visits

Visits from the US

7.9%

Largest markets outside the US

India, Germany and Canada

Sites tracked

10

Miles explains

ChatGPT alone has 92% of all visits. That’s a big lead, but one Google update can close it fast.

Open the AI search engine 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 search engine”, 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 Search Engine Statistics, October 2026”, RankDude, https://rankdude.ai/statistics/ai-search-engine