Global AI Landscape 2025: Dominant Models, Usage Dynamics, and Strategic Market Analysis

Executive Summary

The year 2025 has been recorded as a historical threshold where Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have moved beyond their theoretical potential to become a practical and indispensable layer of the global economy, workflows, and socio-cultural interactions. This report focuses on the question of 'most used AI models and usage rates globally in 2025', offering a comprehensive analysis in light of current market data, user statistics, technological infrastructure shifts, and geopolitical tech competition.

The data obtained shows that the global AI market is moving away from a homogeneous structure, evolving into a bipolar ecosystem that can be termed 'The Great Bifurcation'. In the Western hemisphere and global markets in general, the GPT series models developed by OpenAI and the ChatGPT platform hosting them dominate the market with 'winner-take-most' dynamics. However, the Chinese technology ecosystem, led by local giants like ByteDance (Doubao), Alibaba (Quark/Qwen), and Tencent (Yuanbao/Hunyuan), has created a massive alternative universe that rivals and even surpasses Western competitors in terms of user numbers.

The findings of the report reveal that usage habits remain not limited to chatbots only, but pave the way for a new efficiency-focused industrial revolution as 'Agentic AI' systems integrate into corporate workflows. The silent revolution in the open-source world, in particular, has gained a new dimension as the dominance of Meta's Llama series is shaken by Chinese-origin Qwen and DeepSeek models. This indicates a shift in the geographical center of technological innovation and an effort by Global South countries to close the digital divide through these cost-effective models.

1. Introduction: General Outlook of the AI Ecosystem in 2025

2025 has been the year AI technologies transitioned from the 'experimentation' phase to the 'integration' phase. The wave of excitement seen in 2023 and 2024 has been replaced by tangible business results, measurable efficiency gains, and usage habits that have become a routine part of daily life.

1.1. Investment and Economic Size

According to the Stanford AI Index 2025 report, the Generative AI sector reached a volume of $33.9 billion with an 18.7% increase in global private sector investments, creating a US-centered investment ecosystem exceeding $109 billion in total. This massive capital flow has accelerated not only the training of larger models but also the improvement of their energy efficiency and commercialization. While the total value of the global AI market reached approximately $391 billion, the sector is projected to increase its value ninefold by 2033.

1.2. Hybrid Intelligence and Workforce Transformation

In 2025, the most crucial agenda item for the business world was not whether AI would replace human labor, but how to optimize the concept of 'Hybrid Intelligence'. Research by McKinsey shows that 78% of organizations actively use AI as of 2025. This usage is shaped towards closing talent gaps and increasing efficiency rather than layoffs. 1.8% of job postings now directly demand AI competencies, and 90% of tech workers use AI tools in their daily tasks.

2. Consumer-Centric Generative AI Market: Dominant Models and Applications

The consumer market is the most visible face of AI technologies. In 2025, approximately 16.3% of the world's population (one in every six people) actively uses generative AI tools. This rate is the clearest indicator that the technology has spread from a niche audience to the general public. However, user preferences sharply diverge based on the quality of experience offered, language support, and ecosystem advantages of the platform.

2.1. Absolute Market Leader: ChatGPT and OpenAI Ecosystem

OpenAI's ChatGPT platform maintains its status as synonymous with 'Artificial Intelligence' in 2025. reaching 769.14 million monthly active users (MAU) as of October 2025 data, ChatGPT commands a user base approximately five times larger than its closest competitor.

Super App Strategy: throughout 2025, OpenAI transformed ChatGPT from just a chatbot into a multimodal 'Super App'. Users can now perform web searches, generate images (DALL-E 3 integration), conduct data analysis, and even experience natural conversation with voice mode without leaving the platform. This strategy maximized user retention; while ChatGPT's retention rate at month 12 is around 50%, this rate remains around 25% for competitors.

Model Diversity: OpenAI's GPT-4, GPT-4o (omni), and o1 (reasoning-focused) models are the driving force behind the platform. The o1 model, in particular, has consolidated the academic and technical user base with its ability to solve complex logical problems.

2.2. Giants Behind the Great Wall: Doubao and Quark

Although often overlooked in Western media, the world's second and third-largest AI applications by user numbers are of Chinese origin. This shows that the fragmented structure of the global internet (splinternet) continues in the age of AI.

Doubao (ByteDance): Developed by ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, Doubao is the second most used AI application globally with 159.41 million MAU. Built on the Doubao-1.5 Pro model, the app targets a young user base with video and image generation capabilities and is becoming a standard in social media content creation.

Quark (Alibaba): Ranking third with 151.66 million MAU, Quark is based on Alibaba's Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) model. Starting as a cloud storage and search tool, Quark has transformed into a powerful personal assistant with Qwen integration. Its ability to analyze documents, summarize, and answer complex queries has made it popular especially among students and white-collar workers.

2.3. Google Gemini: Growth Through Ecosystem Power

Although Google's Gemini platform ranks fifth with 76.55 million MAU on a mobile app basis, this figure does not fully reflect Google's real impact. Gemini models embedded within the Android operating system and Google Workspace (Docs, Gmail, Drive) serve billions of users 'invisibly'.

Growth Momentum: Gemini recorded a 155% annual growth in desktop user traffic in 2025. The 300% increase in Gemini Advanced subscriptions, in particular, indicates that technical superiorities such as the model's (Gemini 1.5 Pro) long context window are being adopted by professional users.

2.4. Rising Stars and Niche Players

DeepSeek: A China-based startup, DeepSeek has shown a remarkable rise with 72.05 million MAU. Adopting an open-source philosophy and offering extremely low inference costs, DeepSeek is especially popular among developers and technical users.

Perplexity: Positioned as a rival to traditional search engines, Perplexity has become the choice of information-focused users with 35.74 million MAU. Its 'Answer Engine' approach allows users to reach synthesized information directly instead of clicking on links.

Nova: Developed by HubX (Turkey), Nova became one of the surprise players entering the global top 10 with 64.16 million MAU. This 'aggregator' approach, offering different models (GPT, Claude, etc.) in a single interface, achieved success by eliminating the difficulty of model selection for users.

3. Enterprise Adoption: Business Preferences and Trends

While popularity in the consumer market is a significant indicator, the main factor determining the long-term permanence and economic impact of AI models is enterprise adoption. 2025 has been the year companies moved from the 'playground' to the 'battlefield', integrating AI into critical business processes.

3.1. Shift in Enterprise Model Preferences: The Rise of Anthropic

While OpenAI leads on the consumer side, balances are more complex on the enterprise side. According to reports from Menlo Ventures and other analyst firms, Anthropic's Claude models have rapidly increased their market share, especially in sectors requiring high accuracy such as software development, law, and finance.

Why Claude? Enterprise users prefer Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Opus models due to their 'Constitutional AI' safety-focused design, lower hallucination rates, and very large context windows. Claude is found more reliable than competitors, especially in tasks such as analyzing complex codebases and scanning thousands of pages of legal documents.

Microsoft's Dominance: Microsoft is the 'default' provider for the enterprise market with Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot for Microsoft 365. Integration with companies' existing Microsoft infrastructure (Teams, Outlook, SharePoint) is the main driver for the spread of OpenAI models (GPT-4) in the corporate world. However, Gartner's 2025 reports indicate that players like IBM and Google are gaining strength in the 'Emerging Leaders' category.

3.2. Agentic Workflows

The most distinct trend in enterprise AI usage in 2025 is the transition from simple 'Q&A' bots to 'Agents' capable of autonomous tasks. Gartner predicts that 33% of enterprise software will include agentic AI by 2028. These systems can manage supply chain orders, resolve customer complaints, and detect and fix software bugs without human approval.

4. Open Source Revolution and Technical Infrastructure

2025 is a turning point where AI models are not just 'used' but also 'owned'. Open-source or open-weights models developed as alternatives to proprietary models (GPT-4, Gemini) have become the new favorite of developers and companies by closing the performance gap.

4.1. Llama's Throne is Shaky: Qwen and DeepSeek Storm

The open-source ecosystem, long dominated by Meta's Llama series, came under intense pressure from models developed by Chinese tech giants in 2025. Hugging Face download statistics strikingly reveal this shift.

Qwen (Alibaba) Domination: In the last quarter of 2025, Alibaba's Qwen model family surpassed Meta's Llama models in total cumulative downloads. Qwen 2.5 and Qwen 3 series have become the first choice even for Western developers with their superior performance, especially in coding and mathematical problems.

DeepSeek and MoE Architecture: DeepSeek has stood out as one of the models using 'Mixture of Experts' (MoE) architecture most efficiently. This architecture reduces processor (CPU/GPU) costs by allowing the model to use only the relevant part of parameters for each query rather than the whole. This feature has made DeepSeek unrivaled in regions with hardware constraints and cost-focused projects.

5. Global Diffusion, Digital Divide, and Geopolitics

The usage of AI models does not show a geographically homogeneous distribution. Microsoft's 'AI Diffusion Index 2025' report points to a deepening digital divide globally.

5.1. Divide Between Global North and South

According to report data, while 24.7% of the working population in Global North (developed economies) countries use generative AI tools, this rate remains at 14.1% in the Global South. This difference raises concerns that the efficiency gains brought by technology are distributed unfairly.

Leading Countries: The United Arab Emirates (64%) and Singapore (61%) are the countries with the highest AI usage rates globally, thanks to state-supported digitalization programs and high internet penetration.

5.2. Bridge Role of Open Source: DeepSeek in Africa

As an interesting geopolitical development, Chinese-origin open-source models are filling the gap in markets where Western commercial models (like ChatGPT Plus) remain expensive. Especially in Africa and Southeast Asia, DeepSeek, which is accessible for free and requires low hardware, is heavily adopted by local developers and users.

6. Conclusion and Future Perspective

In light of 2025 data, the following strategic inferences can be made regarding the future of the AI world:

• Battle of Ecosystems: The market has turned from a 'Best model' competition to a 'Best ecosystem' competition. Users are looking for an 'operating system' integrated into their emails, calendars, and files that facilitates their lives, not just a smart chatbot.
• Rise of Open Source and Security: The success of models like Qwen and DeepSeek has proven that open-source AI is not just a 'hobby' but a power that can compete with commercial models.
• Permanence of Usage Habits: AI usage has ceased to be a curiosity and become a necessity. Global diffusion reaching 16.3% of users shows that the technology is approaching the 'early majority' phase in the adoption curve.

In conclusion, in 2025, the world is under the influence not of a single dominant AI model, but of a multi-polar AI model network specialized according to geographical, economic, and technical needs. ChatGPT in the West, Doubao and Qwen in the East, and DeepSeek and Claude in the developer world stand out as the architects of this new era.