The ZDNET Index of AI Tool Popularity
Popularity in the tech world is hard to measure. I’ve talked at length about this in my discussions of programming language popularity. It really comes down to what you use to measure popularity — and how available those metrics are to those doing the analysis.
It’s difficult to generically define popularity, especially when you’re including tools that do wildly different things. For example, is a general-purpose text-to-image generator like Midjourney inherently more popular than a tool that removes backgrounds from images like Remove.bg?
Over the past few years, I’ve been carefully refining my popularity index methodology. My indexes take a page from the world of political analysis: I aggregate survey data from multiple rankings, and weight them carefully to account for the strengths and weaknesses of each dataset.
Aggregating multiple data sources
As source data for this analysis, I’m using data tables from four sources. The different sources add differing levels of value to the overall aggregate based on the data they contain.
- Exploding Topics (Weight 32%, ID XPT): Exploding Topics is a company that analyzes trends based on web searches, conversations, and mentions. Its data is mostly derived from web analytics platforms.
- AI Tools (Weight 32%, ID AIT): AI Tools is an AI tools directory that catalogs over 10,000 AI tools, each categorized into one of 171 individual categories. Its data is derived from traffic analysis platforms.
- World Bank Group (Weight 22%, ID WBG): World Bank Group is an international development organization and financial institute. In March of 2024, the organization published a policy research paper entitled, "Who on Earth Is Using Generative AI?" On page 12, the document has a ranking of generative AI tools based on traffic.
- TechRadar Survey (Weight 14%, ID TRS): TechRadar is a tech website that’s something of a competitor to ZDNET. Via parent company Future PLC, the site conducted a survey at two points during 2024, which it published in 2025.
The #1 thing to remember when using AI
Before I talk about the rankings themselves, I’d like to mention one other aspect of the analysis process: I did the whole thing by hand. Oh yes, I spent hours going down a rabbit hole with ChatGPT trying to get it to take in the datasets and spit out an aggregate, but it got stubborn.
Really, really stubborn. It complained it couldn’t read the data. So I converted the data into text, but it still got confused. It began conflating results from the different sources. It lost track of its progress and we had to start over, three or four times.
I have no doubt that I could have developed a series of carefully crafted prompts that would have gotten me a file I could export into Excel, but I soon realized that the negotiating and cajoling process with the AI would take longer than filling the Nespresso water tank to brew some espresso and doing it all by hand, using the technology of caffeine to aid me.
What does it all mean?
I was not surprised that ChatGPT leads the pack. I keep forgetting that Canva is now considered an AI tool, so that did surprise me. To so many users, when they think of AI tools, those are the two that come to mind most.
I was slightly surprised that DeepL outperformed Google Translate as an AI tool, but that may be because most people don’t think of Google Translate as an AI tool. After all, it’s been around a lot longer than the generative AI boom we’re experiencing now.
Conclusion
For now, it looks like ChatGPT is lapping all the other tools, and Canva is leading the second tier. Expect the rest to be in a pitched battle for third place, where there are no standout leaders.
FAQs
Q: How do you measure popularity?
A: I use a combination of web traffic statistics, ranking data, and survey results to measure popularity.
Q: Which AI tools do you use regularly?
A: I use a variety of AI tools, including ChatGPT, Canva, and DeepL.
Q: Which AI tools do you think are overhyped?
A: I think some AI tools are overhyped, including Gemini and Copilot.
Q: How do you stay up-to-date with the latest AI tools?
A: I follow industry leaders, attend conferences, and read industry publications to stay up-to-date with the latest AI tools.
Q: Can you recommend any AI tools for beginners?
A: Yes, I recommend starting with ChatGPT and Canva, as they are easy to use and have a wide range of applications.
