Deepseek overtakes Google Gemini to become the second most popular AI chatbot with 614% traffic surge

Just two months after its successful debut, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has skyrocketed to become the world’s second most popular AI chatbot. According to website tracking firm SimilarWeb, DeepSeek.com now sees more daily visits than Google’s Gemini and Character.AI.

This comes just over a week after DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT to become the top-rated free app on Apple’s U.S. App Store. The buzz around DeepSeek skyrocketed after reports showed its V3 model outperforming Meta’s Llama 3.1, OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 in third-party benchmarks—all while being significantly cheaper.

Deepseek Overtakes Google Gemini

Google Responds to the Competition

But Google isn’t backing down. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, dismissed DeepSeek’s models as less efficient than Google’s. “The cost of actually using it is going to keep coming down, which will make more use cases feasible,” Pichai said.

On February 5, Google also expanded its Gemini 2.0 lineup with several new AI models, featuring the much-anticipated Pro Experimental alongside the budget-friendly Flash and Flash Lite. The release also opened up Google’s Flash Thinking reasoning model to all app users.

“Google is closing in on DeepSeek when it comes to balancing quality and price, while DeepSeek’s chatbot has leapfrogged Google’s Gemini,” The Information reported.

Traffic Explosion on DeepSeek.com

SimilarWeb data shows that DeepSeek.com hit a record 49 million visits last Tuesday, marking a 614% jump from the previous week. While this figure doesn’t include app-based traffic, it highlights DeepSeek’s rapid growth. A month ago, the site averaged 300,000 daily visits, but by January 27, that number exploded to 33.4 million, shaking up U.S. tech stocks.

DeepSeek is now outpacing Google’s Gemini and Character.AI, which see about 10 million and 6 million daily visits, respectively. However, it still trails OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which pulls in 130 to 140 million visits per day. DeepSeek’s numbers also fall short of Microsoft’s Bing.com, which integrates OpenAI’s Copilot AI.

Credit: SimilarWeb

Interest in DeepSeek surged after the company released its open-source V3 model, which reportedly cost just $5.5 million to train—a fraction of what U.S. companies spend. V3 offers capabilities similar to ChatGPT and can be freely downloaded and run on local servers, making it attractive for businesses looking to integrate AI without hefty costs.

SimilarWeb’s latest numbers show that global visits to DeepSeek.com settled at 29.2 million last Friday. In the U.S., the platform peaked at 4.9 million daily visits on January 28, before dipping to 2.4 million by January 31, an 813.3% week-over-week increase.

How Long Will DeepSeek’s Momentum Last?

However, this momentum may not last. Competition in the AI chatbot space is heating up. OpenAI recently rolled out a new feature called “Deep Research,” which generates comprehensive reports by pulling data from hundreds of online sources. DeepSeek is also facing scrutiny over its privacy and censorship practices, which could push users toward other options.

Adding to its challenges, DeepSeek.com experienced a large-scale cyber attack on January 27 forcing it to temporarily suspend new user registrations. The move comes after millions of users flocked to the Apple App Store, driving the app to surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in the United States.

“Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek’s services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service. Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support,” DeepSeek said on its status page.