Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – Artificial intelligence has now become part of the daily routine of millions of Italians. In August 2026, AI assistants reached 18,9 million unique visitors in Italy, more than double the approximately 9 million recorded in January 2025. Four out of ten Italians online use these tools, but while their adoption continues to expand, usage patterns and the balance between platforms are changing: ChatGPT remains firmly in the lead, but is losing audience share to competitors, starting with Google Gemini.
This is what emerges from new Sensemakers analyses of Comscore data, conducted at the Netcomm FOCUS Digital Marketing & Channel Strategy event, which captures a rapidly changing market, with consequences not only for users' digital habits, but also for online search and companies' advertising strategies.
The penetration of AI assistants among the Italian digital population increased from 20% at the beginning of 2025 to 40% in August 2026, narrowing the gap compared to other countries, where the percentage stands between 44% and 46%.
Growth, however, is slowing: while adoption had increased by nine percentage points in the first half of 2025, in the first six months of 2026 the progress was limited to two points.
What's growing most is the intensity of use. In the first half of 2026, Italians spent an average of 80 minutes per month using AI assistants, compared to 44 minutes the previous year.
A value even lower than that of the United States, where 94 minutes per month are recorded, and especially the United Kingdom, which reaches 118 minutes.
The device through which AI is accessed is also changing. Since June 2025, mobile audiences have surpassed desktop audiences, reversing the ratio observed at the beginning of last year.
In the first half of 2026, assistants were used by an average of 12,2 million visitors via smartphones and other mobile devices, compared to 10,7 million via desktop. However, desktop maintains an advantage in usage time: 78 minutes per month per visitor, compared to 47 minutes for mobile.
Another significant factor concerns the age of users. AI is no longer a technology primarily associated with the very young. In May 2026, the highest penetration was recorded among 25- to 34-year-olds, at 55,6%, followed by 35- to 44-year-olds at 46,8%. Young people between 18 and 24 continue to spend the most time on AI assistants, with 123 minutes per month, but those over 45 are showing the greatest acceleration: compared to May 2025, the average usage time has increased by 96,4%, reaching 65 minutes per month per visitor.
The spread of AI is also accompanied by a progressive diversification of the market. ChatGPT maintains its leadership position with 13,9 million unique visitors in August, but its share of the overall AI audience has declined significantly. While in mid-2025, it alone accounted for approximately 90% of the audience for these tools, by August 2026, that share had fallen to 74%.
Competing platforms are gaining ground, especially. Google Gemini, in particular, surpassed 9 million visitors in August. Growing competition doesn't necessarily mean users are abandoning ChatGPT: more and more people are using multiple assistants simultaneously. The share of users accessing at least two AI tools in the same month has risen from one in six to approximately one in 3,5, a sign of a market where alternatives and uses are multiplying.
The transformation also affects the way Italians search for information online. Automatically generated answers generated by artificial intelligence are becoming an increasingly common feature of traditional search engines. According to Sensemakers, over 20 million Italians are exposed to AI Overview summaries within Google and Bing searches, an audience even larger than the monthly users of AI assistants.
Comscore's findings, based on observations of browsing behavior and actual queries from a panel of 40 people representative of the Italian population, show that in June 2026, AI summaries appeared in 22% of desktop Google searches in Italy, compared to just 8% in April 2025. This shift could profoundly impact the relationship between search engines, publishers, and websites, as an increasing portion of information is provided directly on results pages.
Changing user habits are also opening up business opportunities. In the United States, where market transformation is most advanced, advertising is increasingly present within AI assistants. According to US data reported by Sensemakers, on ChatGPT, the percentage of video game and console-related conversations that include sponsored ads increased from 3% in March 2026 to 47% in June 2026. Significant increases were also seen in the toys and hobbies sectors, from 5% to 24%, and books, music, and video, from 9% to 22%.
These are dynamics that could predict the evolution of the advertising market in Europe as well, where the growing diffusion of AI assistants poses new challenges to brand visibility strategies and the traditional online search model.
"AI is now a mass phenomenon, and as the major OTT platforms have demonstrated, such widespread adoption can rapidly redefine market rules," comments Antonio Pepe, COO and Partner at Sensemakers. "Observing the most advanced countries allows us to anticipate changes, seize new opportunities, and reduce risks."
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