Frontier Brief
As of 13 Aug 2026
A private briefing · compiled 13 August 2026

The frontier, as it stands this week.

Capability at the top of the market has converged. Distribution has not. ChatGPT still takes more than half of standalone chatbot web traffic, Gemini is the only other consumer-scale assistant, and Claude now leads on coding and enterprise revenue even with a much smaller public audience. This page compares the latest flagship models, who uses them, and how much capital sits behind each lab.

11Frontier labs and surfaces in this briefing
53.9%ChatGPT share of measured chatbot web visits
$965BAnthropic private valuation, now the highest of the pure labs
1B+Monthly users each for ChatGPT and Gemini

Who people actually open

Worldwide web-visit share among the seven largest standalone generative assistants, May 2026. Combined traffic that month: 10.4 billion visits. This is the cleanest public ranking of destination chat products — it undercounts apps, APIs, and assistants buried inside Search, Windows, or Instagram.

Source: Similarweb via Momentic, May 2026 complete month. Shares are of this seven-assistant set, not of all AI usage on Earth.

53.9% ChatGPT leads

Two companies hold 82% of measured visits. ChatGPT is still larger than the other six combined, but its share has slid from about 79% a year earlier while its visit count stayed roughly flat. The market grew around it.

Gemini is the only real consumer challenger. 27.9% worldwide, up from the mid-single digits in early 2025, helped by Android, Search, and Workspace. Google said the Gemini app itself crossed 1 billion monthly users this month.

Claude is the growth story, not the volume story. 9.2% of web visits, up about 855% year over year, with the lowest bounce rate among the big three. Anthropic’s money is in the API, not the consumer homepage.

Not on this pie: Meta AI’s 1.2 billion in-app users, Chinese destination apps such as Doubao and Qwen Chat, and almost all Copilot usage inside Microsoft 365.

What the market thinks they are worth

Pure labs are shown at last reported private valuation. Public parents are shown at August 2026 market capitalization. These are not the same thing — Alphabet’s $4.3 trillion is Search, YouTube, Cloud, and Android, not just Gemini.

Pure AI labs · last private mark

Latest primary or widely reported post-money valuation.

Anthropic
$965B
OpenAI
$852B
xAI
$250B
DeepSeek
~$45B
Perplexity
$22.6B

Anthropic’s May Series H ($65B at $965B) passed OpenAI’s March mark ($122B at $852B). Both have confidentially filed for 2026 IPOs. xAI was absorbed by SpaceX in February at a $250B AI-unit value. DeepSeek’s first external round this spring was reported in the $10–45B range; $45B is the high print.

Parent companies · Aug 2026 market cap

Public parents of a frontier model or major assistant.

Alphabet
$4.3T
Microsoft
$3.7T
Amazon
$3.0T
SpaceX
~$1.5T
Meta
$1.51T

SpaceX listed in June (SPCX) after buying xAI. Combined-entity prints since the IPO sit roughly $1.4–2.0T; ~$1.5T is the late-July / early-August cluster. Microsoft has put $13B+ into OpenAI and additional capital into Anthropic. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are also spending on the order of $100–200B each in 2026 capex, much of it AI infrastructure.

How many people use them

Companies do not count users the same way. A ChatGPT monthly user, a Gemini app user, a Grok feature user on X, and a Meta AI tap inside WhatsApp are different acts. Treat these as the latest official or well-sourced figures, not a single census.

ChatGPT · OpenAI
1B+
monthly users · 1B weekly in July
OpenAI said “more than 1 billion people” on 6 Aug 2026. Sensor Tower had the app at 1B MAU in May.
Gemini · Google
1B
monthly users · app, Aug 2026
Sundar Pichai this week: a billion people use Gemini every month. 900M+ was the I/O figure in May. Separate from AI Overviews in Search.
Meta AI · Meta
1.2B
MAU across Meta apps · Q1 2026
Embedded in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. Not a standalone chatbot. First Page Sage puts destination share near 0.1%.
Copilot · Microsoft
~420M
reported users · mid-2026
Most use is inside Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365. Standalone web share is only 1.3%.
Grok · xAI
117M
MAU of Grok features · Mar 2026
SpaceX S-1: 117M of X’s 550M MAU used Grok features. Only ~1.9M paid for advanced models. Latest audited public figure.
DeepSeek
~97–130M
active users · 2026 prints
~97M global MAU in circulation; ~130M “active” at end-2025, mostly China. 4.1% of worldwide assistant web visits in May.
Claude · Anthropic
56M
global app MAU · Q2 2026
Sensor Tower / Reuters. Smallest of the Western consumer apps, fastest growth (+640% YoY). Enterprise API is the real business: $47B run-rate in May.
Perplexity
34–45M
MAU · early / mid 2026
Answer-engine niche. App users outnumber web users. $22.6B valuation, ~$500M annualized revenue.

Latest flagships

What each lab is shipping right now — not last winter’s model names. Filter by what you actually need.

GPT-5.6

OpenAI
Sol · Terra · Luna · default in ChatGPT since 9 Jul

The volume leader. Sol is the high-compute flagship; Terra is the everyday workhorse; Luna was cut 80% on 30 Jul to $0.20 / $1.20 per million tokens. Best general assistant most people can actually open. Sol leads several hard math and reasoning boards.

API price$5 / $30 Sol
Context1M tokens
Best atDaily work, math, reach

Claude Opus 5

Anthropic
Released 24 Jul · Fable 5 still the long-horizon specialist

Current intelligence-index leader (Artificial Analysis v4.1: 61). Took Arena’s coding and agent boards. Same $5 / $25 price as Opus 4.8. Fable 5 / Mythos-class sits beside it for the hardest writing and long jobs. Enterprise revenue now outruns OpenAI’s last reported run-rate.

API price$5 / $25
Context1M tokens · 128K out
Best atCoding, agents, writing

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Google DeepMind
Plus 3.5 / 3.6 Flash and 3 Deep Think

The accuracy and multimodal pick, wired through Search, Android, and Workspace. 3.1 Pro has led GPQA Diamond and cheap ARC-AGI-1 work. Google has been shipping Flash-tier speed this summer rather than a new closed flagship. Gemini Spark is the always-on agent from I/O.

API price$2 / $12 Pro
Context1M tokens
Best atAccuracy, multimodal, free reach

Grok 4.5

xAI / SpaceX
Launched 8 Jul · also Grok Build

Real-time X context, fewer content limits, and a 2M-token class window on the prior 4.20 line. AA index around 54 — a step behind Opus 5 and Sol, cheaper than both. Distribution is the X graph: 117M feature users, not a ChatGPT-scale destination app.

API price~$2 / $6 prior flagship
ContextUp to 2M on 4.20
Best atLive X, unfiltered chat

DeepSeek V4

DeepSeek
V4-Pro · V4-Flash 0731 · MIT license

The price-performance wrecking ball. Flash 0731 is about $0.14 / $0.28 per million tokens with a mid-tier intelligence score. Pro is a 1.6T MoE (49B active) that sits within a few GPQA points of the Western flagships. Open weights, 1M context, China-heavy users.

API price$0.14 / $0.28 Flash
Context1M tokens
Best atCost, self-hosting

Llama 4

Meta
Open weights · Meta AI / Muse Spark in-app

The default open stack for everyone who will not pay OpenAI or Anthropic. Meta AI is the most-touched assistant on Earth if you count WhatsApp and Instagram taps, and almost invisible as a destination site. Llama remains the ecosystem play, not the LMSYS crown.

API priceFree weights · host it
Distribution1.2B in-app MAU
Best atOpen ecosystem, social reach

Copilot

Microsoft
Routes GPT-5.6, Claude, and Microsoft’s own MAI models

Not a single frontier model so much as the workplace surface. GitHub Copilot now auto-routes by task. Microsoft is also shipping cheaper in-house models to reduce OpenAI dependence. Tiny standalone web share, enormous Office and Windows footprint.

Parent$3.7T Microsoft
Users~420M reported
Best atM365, GitHub, Windows

Sonar

Perplexity
Sonar / Pro / Reasoning · also routes Kimi K2.5

The cited-answer engine. Losing consumer web share as ChatGPT and Gemini absorbed search-like answers, still the cleanest product if you want sources first. $22.6B company on roughly half a billion of annualized revenue.

Users34–45M MAU
Valuation$22.6B
Best atCited research answers

Kimi K3

Moonshot
AA index 57 · between Sol and Opus 4.8

The surprise on the July board. K3 sits ahead of last-gen Western flagships on Artificial Analysis while remaining far cheaper. Evidence that the second tier of Chinese labs is now a frontier participant, not a clone factory.

IndexAA 57
AlsoK2.7 Code line
Best atCheap near-frontier reasoning

Qwen 3.7

Alibaba
Plus / Max · China + global open weights

Alibaba’s open line remains the other default for self-hosting beside Llama and DeepSeek. Strong coding variants, aggressive price, and a large domestic chat surface that never appears in English-language Similarweb pies.

LicenseOpen weights
AlsoQwen Chat in China
Best atOpen multilingual, value

Mistral

Mistral AI
Magistral · Medium · Le Chat

Europe’s lab. Not winning the intelligence index, still the sovereign and on-prem option for buyers who will not send tokens to US or Chinese hosts. Le Chat is a small slice of the “Other 4.2%” in US chatbot share.

AngleEU, on-prem, open-ish
SurfaceLe Chat
Best atEuropean deployment

How they compare

A compressed scorecard. Benchmarks move weekly; the strategic shape of the market has been more stable: OpenAI owns habit, Google owns distribution, Anthropic owns the enterprise token bill, xAI owns the X graph, DeepSeek owns the price floor.

Lab Latest flagship Users Web share Capital Revenue signal Where it wins
OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol / Terra / Luna 1B+ MAU 53.9% $852B private ~$25B run-rate Default assistant. Math, everyday knowledge work, brand.
Anthropic Claude Opus 5, Fable 5, Sonnet 5 56M app MAU 9.2% $965B private $47B run-rate Coding, agents, writing, API spend. Highest lab valuation.
Google Gemini 3.1 Pro, 3.5/3.6 Flash 1B MAU 27.9% $4.3T parent Inside Alphabet Science accuracy, multimodal, free consumer distribution.
xAI Grok 4.5, Grok Build 117M feature MAU 2.4% $250B unit · ~$1.5T parent ~$0.5–3B scale Live X, fewer filters. Still a money-losing compute story.
DeepSeek V4-Pro, V4-Flash 0731 ~100M 4.1% ~$45B Price leader Open weights near the frontier at a tenth the token price.
Meta Llama 4, Muse Spark 1.2B in-app ~0.1% solo $1.51T parent Inside Meta ads Social distribution and the open-weight default.
Microsoft Copilot + MAI + routed models ~420M 1.3% web $3.7T parent M365 attach Work surface. Can switch models underneath.
Perplexity Sonar family 34–45M 1.3% $22.6B ~$500M ARR Cited answers. Losing share to the generalists.
Moonshot Kimi K3 n/a public Private Near-frontier scores without Western flagship prices.
Alibaba Qwen 3.7 Large in CN Off this pie Public parent Cloud attach Open multilingual models and domestic chat.

If you want one assistant

GPT-5.6 in ChatGPT

Still the product with habit, plugins, and a billion people already there. Capability is no longer a unique advantage; the account is.

If you write software

Claude Opus 5

Coding and agent boards flipped to Anthropic in August. Fable 5 if the job is long and expensive. Sonnet if you are paying the bill.

If tokens are the product

DeepSeek V4-Flash

Frontier-adjacent quality at $0.14 / $0.28. The reason Western labs cut Luna and Terra at the end of July.

If you need it to be free and everywhere

Gemini

A billion app users plus Search and Android. Best science scores among the consumer flagships earlier this summer.

If you live on X

Grok 4.5

Native firehose, fewer refusals, and a parent with rocket-scale capex. Not the intelligence leader; the context leader for that network.

The money plot

Anthropic $47B vs OpenAI ~$25B

Consumer fame and API fortune have decoupled. Claude’s user base is a fraction of ChatGPT’s; its run-rate is not.

Sources and caveats

Compiled 13 August 2026 from public reporting. Figures disagree across trackers because they measure different things (web visits vs. app MAU vs. in-feed taps vs. API seats). Where sources conflict, this page prefers company disclosures, then audited filings, then named research firms.