Web Market Yearbook 2026: How AI is Reshaping the Internet

While search and social remain the dominant gateways to the internet, AI assistants have emerged as the fastest-growing category of 2025. Platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek are rapidly changing how users discover information, research products, and engage online.

At the same time, broader structural shifts continue to define the modern web. Sensor Tower's "Web Market Yearbook 2026" report reveals that while mobile now accounts for the majority of visits, desktop still dominates engagement, with search, social, and AI vying for the future of discovery.

## AI Assistants Become the New Layer of the Web

Generative AI rapidly evolved from an experimental tool to a core web behavior in 2025. AI assistant traffic surged 86% year-over-year globally, becoming the fastest-growing web category. ChatGPT alone added over 60 billion visits year-over-year, becoming the sixth most visited website in the world.

This momentum extends across the broader AI ecosystem. Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and Grok all rank among the fastest-growing websites globally in traffic and time spent, and engagement with AI assistants in the US has more than tripled since early 2024.

The rise of AI is also beginning to impact the broader web economy. Visits to traditional information categories like news and education softened in 2025, indicating that users are increasingly relying on AI-driven synthesis instead of navigating directly to multiple websites.

## Mobile Wins Traffic, Desktop Still Dominates Engagement

While the web is increasingly mobile-first, user behavior remains highly fragmented across devices. Mobile accounted for 47.6% of visits in 2025, and in Q1 2026, it surpassed half of all global web visits for the first time. This growth was driven by increased adoption in mobile-first markets like India and Indonesia, as well as increased mobile usage in mature markets including the US.

Despite this shift, desktop still accounts for over 70% of total global web time spent, reflecting the ongoing importance of the web for productivity, research, and long-form engagement.

AI assistants are also beginning to bridge this divide. Cross-platform AI usage more than doubled between early 2024 and late 2025, as users increasingly move between browser-based workflows and mobile AI experiences.

Looking broadly beyond browser activity, Sensor Tower's True Audience metric measures unique users across mobile apps, mobile web, and desktop web. Across this broader digital ecosystem, Alphabet and Meta continue to command a global duopoly of attention, with Google leading with an average of 2.9 billion monthly True Audience users in 2025.

## Search, Social, and AI Vie for the Future of Discovery

Even as AI accelerates, the web remains highly concentrated around a few dominant platforms. Browsers & Search Engines and Social Media generated a combined 2.4 trillion+ visits globally in 2025, reinforcing their roles as the internet's primary discovery infrastructure. While visits to both subgenres were relatively flat year-over-year in 2025, time spent declined (Social Media -1%, Browsers & Search Engines -7%), suggesting AI assistants are beginning to capture engagement from legacy market leaders.

Social media also remained one of the largest drivers of discovery across categories, from streaming and gaming to AI assistants themselves. Meanwhile, despite rapid growth, emerging AI traffic sources remain relatively small overall, accounting for less than 1% of total web traffic.

Despite its relatively small scale, AI is already influencing consumer behavior across sectors from retail to travel. For example, Amazon shoppers who use Rufus exhibit roughly double the conversion rate of those who do not use Rufus. Also, generative AI-driven... (text cut off)