AI Platform Landscape Shifts: Claude Traffic Surges 63% in One Month, Yet Google's Moat Remains Formidable

The competitive landscape for generative AI platforms showed clearer divergence in February, with Claude experiencing significant traffic growth following feature updates, while Gemini maintained steady increases. However, Google continues to hold advantages in both user scale and search market share.

According to a March 6th report from Bank of America titled "Claude's Strong Performance, Gemini's Continued Growth," which cited data from Similarweb, Claude's global average daily web traffic surged 63% month-over-month in February. This growth significantly outpaced Gemini's 17% and ChatGPT's 7% increases. Google's web traffic grew 4% month-over-month.

Mobile penetration is also accelerating. Based on Sensor Tower data, Claude's global mobile daily active users (DAU) grew 54% month-over-month to 4.2 million in February. Gemini's mobile DAU grew 12% to 82 million, while ChatGPT's grew 4% to 440 million, indicating that AI capabilities continue to drive incremental usage.

Amid intensifying competition, Statcounter data shows Google's global search market share increased by 14 basis points month-over-month to 90.0% in February. BofA Securities believes AI is driving more complex, longer query streams and expanding search opportunities, maintaining a Buy rating on Alphabet with a $370 price target.

**Web Traffic: Claude Leads February Growth** According to Similarweb data, all major AI platforms saw varying degrees of month-over-month growth in global average daily web visits during February.

Google led significantly with 290 million daily visits, up 6% year-over-year and 4% month-over-month. ChatGPT recorded 197 million daily visits, up 42% year-over-year and 7% month-over-month. Gemini had 79 million daily visits, surging 667% year-over-year and increasing 17% month-over-month.

Claude's performance was particularly notable. It reached 11 million global daily visits, a 308% year-over-year increase and a substantial 63% month-over-month jump.

This trend continued in the US market: Claude's US daily visits reached 3.3 million, up 353% year-over-year and 67% month-over-month. Bank of America attributed this explosive growth to the new Claude Code feature and model upgrades launched in February.

Comparing emerging AI platforms, Grok, Perplexity.ai, and Claude.ai are relatively领先 in terms of traffic. Globally in February, Perplexity.ai had approximately 6 million daily visits, up 44% year-over-year. Grok had about 11 million daily visits, up 9% month-over-month.

It is noteworthy that the combined traffic of all these emerging AI platforms still amounts to less than 1% of Google's daily traffic, highlighting the significant scale disparity.

**Mobile: Gemini and Claude Both Show Strength** Mobile data corroborates these trends. According to Sensor Tower statistics, among the mobile DAU of major global AI platforms in February, ChatGPT continued to lead with 440 million users, up 193% year-over-year and 4% month-over-month. Gemini's global mobile DAU reached 82 million, up 328% year-over-year and 12% month-over-month, representing a net increase of approximately 9 million users in a single month.

Claude's growth on mobile was also impressive. Its global mobile DAU reached 4.2 million, up 407% year-over-year with a sharp 54% month-over-month increase, adding a net 1.4 million users in February.

In the US market, Claude's mobile DAU reached 1.3 million, up 394% year-over-year and 52% month-over-month. For comparison, Grok's mobile DAU was 12 million, up 3% month-over-month, while Perplexity's global mobile DAU was approximately 9 million, up 191% year-over-year.

Despite the eye-catching growth rates, the absolute DAU figures for Claude and Perplexity remain orders of magnitude smaller than those of ChatGPT and Gemini. Google's own global mobile DAU stands at a massive 2.2 billion, up 12% year-over-year, maintaining an incomparable scale advantage.

**Search Share: Google's Position Solid, Bing Makes Quiet Gains** Regarding search market share, Statcounter data shows Google's global search share edged up 14 basis points month-over-month to 90.0% in February, though it experienced a slight year-over-year decline of 14 basis points. Bing's share rose 55 basis points month-over-month and 103 basis points year-over-year to 5.0%, continuing its upward trend.

Regional data shows divergence. In the US market, Google's search share recovered 26 basis points month-over-month to 84.2%, but was still down 311 basis points year-over-year. Bing's US share rose 57 basis points month-over-month and 300 basis points year-over-year to 10.5%, showing clear upward momentum.

By device type, Google's advantage is more pronounced on mobile. Its global mobile search share increased 82 basis points year-over-year to 95.2% in February; its desktop share rose 305 basis points year-over-year to 83.0%. In the US desktop segment, Google's share increased 181 basis points year-over-year to 77.4%, while Bing's US desktop share decreased 77 basis points year-over-year to 16.7%.

**Investment Thesis: AI Drives Search Expansion, Alphabet Maintains Buy Rating** Bank of America maintains its Buy rating on Alphabet with a $370 price target. This valuation is based on 27 times the projected 2027 core Google GAAP earnings per share, plus the value of cash per share.

The report indicates that Alphabet is in a favorable long-term competitive position, supported by several core factors: 1) AI-driven search expansion: Sustained user growth and strong Q4 search performance suggest AI is fostering an expansive cycle of search usage, with more complex user queries and longer query streams, thereby enlarging the overall search opportunity rather than replacing it. 2) Enhanced search monetization potential: AI integration has the potential to aid search monetization by improving intent understanding and increasing monetization rates for zero-click queries (currently still in a neutral phase); Agentic capabilities could also significantly enhance performance measurement. 3) Relatively reasonable valuation: The current stock price of around $300 implies a price-to-earnings ratio of 24 times projected 2027 GAAP EPS, compared to approximately 20 times for the S&P 500, representing an acceptable premium.