Claude Posts Massive Month-Over-Month Traffic Boost As Anthropic IPO Looms

Anthropic’s Claude had its biggest-ever month for web traffic in October, marking a nearly 24% month-over-month surge and a bigger increase than any of its closest competitors as the company readies what is expected to be a major initial public offering.Key factsClaude recorded roughly 1.3 billion web visits worldwide in October, according to data shared with Forbes by digital intelligence platform Similarweb, a huge 23.8% increase from September, when it notched 1 billion web visits.The traffic surge follows months of apparent stagnation for Claude, which held steady between roughly 950 million and 1 billion monthly web visits between May and September.Claude traffic is up 536.3% year-over-year, according to Similarweb, a yearly increase that far exceeds any of the other top AI chatbots.Anthropic’s chatbot places third among all AI chatbots for web traffic, behind leader OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which recorded 6 billion web visits in October, and Google’s Gemini, which earned 2.6 billion web visits that month.Claude jumped six spots to No. 25 on Similarweb’s October list of the most-visited websites, the third-highest chatbot behind ChatGPT at No. 5 and Gemini at No. 15.How did competitors fare in October?Claude’s growth in October far outpaced rivals. ChatGPT rose 2.2% month-over-month, rising from 5.9 billion web visits in September to 6 billion in October. Gemini held steady, declining just 0.1% month-over-month as it recorded roughly 2.6 billion web visits in both September and October. DeepSeek, the fourth-biggest chatbot by worldwide web visits, rose 4.7% month-over-month to a total of 327.9 million visits in October.Anthropic readies IPOClaude’s traffic has surged as Anthropic readies what is expected to be a blockbuster initial public offering. The company said in a Securities and Exchange commission filing on Tuesday it is seeking a $1.4 trillion valuation and will sell 825 million shares at a price between $70 and $78 per share. The IPO could become one of the largest in history, though it may fall short of surpassing that of SpaceX, which went public earlier this year. Rival OpenAI also confidentially filed to go public earlier this year, but the company has since said it won’t launch its IPO in 2026. Anthropic shares could begin trading as soon as next week.ChatGPT recovers from traffic slumpOpenAI’s ChatGPT has quietly recovered from languishing traffic, with October marking its highest number of monthly web visits in a year. The leading chatbot recorded 6 billion web visits last month, its fourth straight month of growth and its biggest month since October 2025, when it notched 6.2 billion web visits. ChatGPT has clawed back some of its market share among AI chatbots, a study by Similarweb and AI growth firm Graphite published this week found. Its mobile app and website accounted for 81.2% of all AI traffic worldwide in September, a rebound from its all-time low market share of 80.42% in June. ChatGPT slumped to a yearly low of 5.4 billion web visits in February, a level it reached again in June, before consistently posting month-over-month increases. Gil Luria, managing director and head of technology research at investment firm D. A. Davidson, told Forbes in October the chatbot benefits from its status as an early leader, noting OpenAI achieved a “big install base of consumers” before any competitors who are “still happy using ChatGPT, and therefore are habituated to use that.” ChatGPT has also increased its web traffic despite a spate of controversial incidents—including the attack on AI startup Hugging Face in July—and fears about security risks, bolstered by viral claims from former staffers, including one former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher who claimed AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” Luria said both OpenAI and Anthropic are “thoroughly tarnished” and “associated with bad outcomes and bad behavior,” but consumers are “looking past that because the models are so powerful and potent.”Key backgroundClaude emerged as a major AI chatbot contender earlier this year as its traffic blew past all rivals aside from ChatGPT and Gemini. The chatbot was suddenly thrust into a major national spotlight amid a contract dispute with the Department of Defense, which caused app downloads and web traffic to surge as President Donald Trump labeled Anthropic a “radical left, woke” company. Comscore, a firm that measures website traffic, said in an analysis of Claude’s growth in May that Anthropic has benefitted from positioning the technology as a “more thoughtful, safety-forward chatbot.”