It appears that the AI tool landscape is back to growth this month, with traffic up 6% following the decrease of 14% last month and 4% the month before.
Looking at the data underneath these overall numbers, as I spot significant movements and fluctuations among individual AI tools that continue to reshape the Top 100 list.
It appears that the AI tool landscape is back to growth this month, with traffic up 6% following the decrease of 14% last month and 4% the month before.
Looking at the data underneath these overall numbers, as I spot significant movements and fluctuations among individual AI tools that continue to reshape the Top 100 list.
We created this monthly list to understand which tools are popular and, therefore, what you should check out if you’re implementing AI in your workplace.
This month's data underscores, once again, that the landscape of AI in the workplace is changing fast.
Established players are pushing boundaries with continuous innovation, while new players are making waves with fresh use cases that meet the needs and demands (proven by 5 AI tools replaced!).
To get support from a thriving community of leaders responsible for AI in their organizations, join Lead with AI and build your team of AI employees, or check out our recommendations for the best generative AI courses.
Here are highlights of the top 100 AI tools ranking in September, based on Similarweb website traffic and search traffic (by name) in August 2024.
AI Top 10: ChatGPT Reigns, Canva Surges, Suno Stumbles
The top 10 AI for work platforms have shown commendable consistency in keeping up their rankings. There were no significant ranking changes overall, with only the exception of AI music generator Suno, which dropped two spots.
No doubt, ChatGPT continues to hold its ground as the undisputed leader in the AI landscape. However, there was an 18% drop in traffic in August, and this month’s 7% increase has not been enough to return to its peak of over 3 billion monthly visitors. Its competitor, Google Gemini, climbed to #3, while Claude maintained its #6 spot.
Other highlights of the top ten AI tools for the workplace include:
- Canva solidifies its position at #2, even with recent concerns about massive price hikes, with the most monthly traffic gains (excluding ChatGPT) of 8.2 million visits and a 12% increase in branded searches.
- Quillbot continues to capture user interest, achieving a 9% traffic increase and moving up by one position to #5.
- Perplexity AI regained some of the momentum lost the previous month, with a 13% traffic increase in August.
Grammarly, which came back to the leaderboard last month for the first time since May, maintained its #10 rank with a modest 1% traffic uptick. The one it displaced, AI voice generator ElevenLabs, slipped further to #16.
LLMs Category: ChatGPT Leads the Pack, But Claude’s Growth is Impressive
In the LLMs category, ChatGPT dominates by far, accounting for 88% of total GPT usage traffic and 69% of all AI tools for the workplace. Its closest competitors, Google Gemini holds only 8.5% and Claude 2.2%.
However, when we examine growth since the first launch of this report in March, Claude’s trajectory is the most impressive, with 233% more monthly traffic in six months.
Microsoft Copilot, currently ranked #13, stands out as the second-fastest growing AI tool this month (See the next chart for more details). However, its brand visibility for the AI suite continues to decline, now lagging significantly behind other competitors.
Claude and Google Gemini Keep Up the Competition: New LLMs Model Drops
Claude and Google Gemini continue to roll out enhanced versions to compete with ChatGPT’s stronghold in the market. Let’s briefly reflect on recent developments in the LLM arena to understand the competitive dynamics at play:
Claude launched the latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet with Artifact previews that allow real-time visualization and collaboration for text-to-code purposes. I assumed this was a big contributor to Claude’s 12% traffic increase (+7.87M) and an impressive 216% rise in branded searches (+7.85M) last month, which bumped the AI chatbot up two levels in the rankings in August.
Google Gemini just dropped its latest version of Gemini 1.5 Pro earlier and quickly gained attention by beating ChatGPT-4o on Chatbot Arena. While it is still in the beta phase, excitement is building around the potential of this latest development of Google Gemini. We can expect this model will make its mark in the rankings when the broader release is ready.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT continues to raise the bar following the rollout of its reasoning model Project Strawberry, with the launch of Advanced Voice Mode for premium users (Plus & Team). This includes five new voices and enhanced accent recognition for more natural and personal voice-based interactions with the AI chatbot.
August’s Fastest Growing AI Tools: Coding & Creativity Surge
According to the Similarweb data we used for the analysis, AI programming and coding tool Replicate gained an impressive 46% increase in traffic, making a jump from #77 to #58.
In our monthly Lead with AI calls, we’ve seen many interesting use cases (with different AI tools) to build mini apps for various purposes and preferences. You now don’t need to know how to code; just describe it in text to the AI, and it will return the code for you and even show the previews as per the example of the above Claude’s Artifacts.
That is to confirm Replicate’s huge benefits for business applications. It bridges the gap between software engineers and machine learning technologies to enable developers to easily integrate AI models into their projects and build dynamic websites or applications without bogging down in machine learning infrastructure complexities.
Besides that, interestingly, 6 out of 10 fastest-growings are generative AI for image and video creation, demonstrating a strong adoption of AI for creative tasks. Top-half players Midjourney (#18), PixelCut (#35), and Vidnoz (#39) each saw significant traffic spikes—21%, 26%, and 24%, respectively— with noticeable gains in their rankings too.
This table highlights the top AI for work tools that have significant traffic growth over the past month and their ranking jumps:
Fresh Faces in Top 100 AI Tools For Work in September
Several tools we watched in the longer list have made their way into the Top 100 this month. These new entrants, spanning various functions, replace tools like Humata (Research), Autodraw (Image Generators & Editors), Durable (Marketing), Designs AI (Image Generators & Editors), and Codeium (Programming & Coding).
Among new entrants, ReadAI (AI meeting assistant) and Gong (AI for sales) demonstrate strong branding performance, with 80% and 85% of their monthly visitors, respectively, coming from branded searches. NoteGPT (AI for productivity) also stands out for its organic search appeal, capturing 62% of its website traffic, according to Similarweb.
Here is a closer look at this month’s new AI tools for the workplace:
- GingerSoftware (#65) – An AI writing assistant that works like Grammarly (fun fact: It was actually founded a year earlier and initially targeted people with dyslexia!). It helps you fix grammar, enables smart rephrases, and supports multiple languages.
- ReadAI (#68) – Another AI meeting assistant that gives you real-time transcription, summaries, and analytics. The tool differentiates itself with automatic sentiment and engagement trackings, generations of discussed topics across meetings that you missed, and a speaker coach that gives insights to help you become a better communicator.
- NoteGPT (#75) – A tool that helps you work smarter by turning your scattered notes from YouTube, articles, PDFs, and more into structured summaries and mindmaps. It also has an AI Chat to quickly ask and retrieve details you need.
- Gong.io (#77) – An AI tool for sales teams that analyzes conversations and offers real-time feedback on what’s working and what’s not to help you close deals faster and smarter over time.
- Motion (#92) – An AI assistant that time-boxes for you to boost productivity and daily achievements. It creates daily to-do lists based on your deadlines, priorities, and preferences so you can dive right into your day with optimal time management.
The full Top 100 AI Tools in September
For the full Top 100 AI Tools in September, please see below:
Methodology
We reviewed over 400 AI tools referenced in news, online directories, and lists to create this overview.
Our starting point is usage data from the only standardized source, Similarweb. While no publicly available data source is perfect, Similarweb has scored well in comparative benchmarks.
Based on their August data, we made our calculations as follows:
- For web traffic, we took the August monthly visits.
- For branded searches (as a proxy for true popularity), we multiplied the percentage of the August web traffic by the percentage of branded searches.
- For the % gained (or lost), we took the August monthly visits and compared it to the July traffic.
We focused on company, enterprise, and individual contributor-focused platforms that bring Generative AI to the workplace. Platforms with an outspoken consumer focus (which may be used at work too, like Character.AI, the number #4 in our AI Top 150) are not included.
Reversely, there may be platforms here that have real utility for work, but consumers also use them. Just look at ChatGPT, which students highly use. We aim to showcase all the great AI technology that can help people work smarter, so we still included such platforms.
Finally, because of the data source (Similarweb web traffic and branded searches), it also means that huge tools that millions use, but are administered by a few (like most HR tech - see our AI in HR Top 40 and AI for HRIS Software) are lower in the ranking.
We may have overseen some tools, but we believe that this is a comprehensive selection. If we erroneously left out any platforms, please submit your listing for our next report.
We excluded tools that existed before Generative AI unless they were significantly transformed.
For platforms with fairly significant AI features, like Canva, Notion, and Figma, we applied an estimated percentage of their total traffic that could be attributed to their AI features.
Often, this is based on statements from the company, like Canva, noting how people have produced over 4 billion AI creations over the past year. Otherwise, we took a standard 2–10% of total web traffic.
Where applicable, like in the case of Grammarly, we used the 'app' version of the website, which is where the actual usage happens.
Whenever a platform had multiple use cases besides general GPTs, we listed it under its apparent most-used case, analyzed from search data or sub-URL popularity. This is why Canva is under Image Generators, even though it also has a significant presence in the video and presentation generator categories. (Psst, Canva, feel free to contact us with the real data ;))
All of the above paints an obvious picture: this is very much an imperfect view of AI tools' popularity, driven by our curiosity.
For some web tools, the proxies we've taken for usage could be solid, as web traffic and search dominance likely reflect how often people use a tool like Quillbot, which all takes place on the website.
For others, like software you can download (Descript, the Office version of Microsoft Copilot) and tools that mostly get used through plugins (Grammarly) or apps, this is only a tertiary indication of potential popularity.
In future months, we'd love to include real usage numbers, as reported by these platforms, to create better rankings.
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