Google Gemini users near 1 billion after Q2 growth update

Google Gemini users have climbed above 950 million monthly users, Alphabet said on its Q2 2026 earnings call. For investors watching the AI race, the number shows Google’s assistant getting close to the billion-user scale already reached by several of the company’s core products.

Google’s billion-user roster already includes Search, Gmail, Drive, Android, YouTube and Chrome, according to the company. Gemini is now approaching that group after usage tripled from a year earlier, Alphabet said.

How many users does Google Gemini have?

Alphabet said Gemini now has more than 950 million monthly users. Monthly users generally refers to people who use a product at least once during a month, a common way tech companies describe the reach of apps and services.

The latest figure also marks a jump from February, when Google said the Gemini app had passed 750 million monthly active users. The growth puts Gemini closer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which reached 1 billion monthly active users in June, according to Reuters.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pointed to newer assistant features during the call. “Users love new agentic features like Daily Brief and our personalized agent, Gemini Spark, which is now available in the U.S. and internationally,” Pichai said. He added that Google has been releasing new features quickly.

Agentic AI is industry shorthand for tools designed to do more than respond to one-off prompts. In practice, that can mean assistant-style features that organize information, personalize responses or help complete tasks inside an app.

Gemini is gaining ground beyond Android

Google’s built-in Android distribution gives Gemini a large base, but the app has also attracted users on Apple devices. AppFigures said Gemini was downloaded more than 137 million times on iOS over the past 12 months.

TechCrunch reported that Gemini’s iOS momentum has been helped by launches such as Nano Banana, Google’s image generation model. The source material did not provide a breakdown of Gemini’s Android downloads.

Sensor Tower’s latest “State of AI” report, which covered the first half of 2026, said ChatGPT’s share among AI assistants dropped below 50% for the first time. Sensor Tower said Gemini’s share rose to 27.7% over that period.

What does this mean for Google Search?

AI assistants are increasingly used as search alternatives, but Alphabet said its search business remained strong in the quarter. The company said its Q&A-style AI Mode in Search passed 1 billion users.

Google also said AI Mode is driving an incremental increase in search queries. That matters because Search is still central to Google’s business, and AI features can be expensive to run compared with traditional search results.

Alphabet said it has lowered the cost of AI Mode through hardware engineering, even while adding new models and features. The company did not give a specific cost figure on the call.

The update leaves Google with two AI-related scale stories at once: Gemini as a standalone assistant nearing 1 billion monthly users, and AI Mode inside Search already above that mark. The company’s next test is whether that usage keeps growing as OpenAI and other AI assistant makers compete for the same daily habits.

This story draws on original reporting from TechCrunch.