Saad Ullah
⬤ Generative AI absolutely dominated as the fastest-growing online industry in 2025, based on global traffic data from Similarweb. Monthly visits to generative AI platforms exploded from 4.401 billion in 2024 to 8.017 billion in 2025—that's an 82% surge in just one year. The chart comparing traffic across major online industries worldwide shows generative AI crushing the competition with growth that left every other category in the dust.
⬤ Sure, massive sectors like "All Industries" and "Computers, Electronics and Technology" still pull the biggest raw traffic numbers, but their growth rates barely moved. Generative AI, though? It skyrocketed past arts and entertainment, e-commerce, and general tech services combined. The data makes it crystal clear: people are flooding into AI tools at a pace we haven't seen in any other online category.
⬤ Other industries showed mixed results. AI chatbots and tools grew alongside generative AI, proving the broader AI wave is real. But news and media? Reference materials? Both took hits in monthly visits. Games and entertainment managed modest gains, but nothing remotely close to generative AI's explosive growth trajectory.
⬤ This matters because traffic patterns reveal how the internet's actually being used. Generative AI's rapid rise signals it's becoming core infrastructure for how people work and interact online worldwide. As AI grabs more share of global web traffic, expect it to reshape platform strategies, competitive battles, and the entire direction of digital innovation across every industry.
Saad Ullah
