What is the end game for small and micro businesses’ AI adoption?

This is part one of a series where Morphilus is looking for the tipping point where there is a clear path forward for Small and Micro businesses to go all-in on a specific well-manicured platform with a simple user experience.

Since November 2022, yes that over three years ago, when ChatGPT was first launched, there has been a mind boggling delivery of new models and new features across the board. 

From that initial time when ChatGPT, as the first mover, had 100% of the chatbot traffic, the marketplace has become populated with other providers from across the globe and is also diverging into major user categories.

As a specialist in micro and small business applications of AI, Morphilus, keeps abreast of these changes in order to guide business owners through the AI information overload to the most solid foundation on which to build their AI transformations.

2025 saw Google in particular bring many new capabilities to the market but for the most part it seemed very fragmented. However, the most recent November 2025 release of Google’s Gemini 3 could mark the tipping point where committing to skill-up in this platform of capabilities may be the right answer for most!

But before digging into the reality of the Google masterplan let’s step back for a moment and grasp the world view on who is doing what.   Firstly, looking at consumer usage, noting importantly that the vast majority of consumers are likely not paying for the chatbot service, here’s what in the world is going on.   (these stats were gathered with the help of Claude)

Global Consumer AI Chatbot Usage Statistics (Mid-2025), Including China, India, and Western Markets.  Based on multiple sources from May-November 2025

Within the global stats it is worth noting that Western chatbots are not welcome in China and may in fact be banned.

The other important differentiator is that US LLMs are largely closed source whereas Chinese LLMs are open source, the latter theoretically providing greater opportunities for innovation!

However, given the enormous investments planned for the AI space it is also worth noting that of the USA majors there is an important transition taking place in the all-important enterprise usage of LLMs.  Enterprise usage can loosely be equated to paying customers.

Viewed through this totally different and narrow lens of US Enterprise LLM API Market share the overall trend is for Anthropic (Claude) to have surpassed ChatGPT with Google Gemini soon to do so as well.  This has been the case because of Anthropic / Claude’s decision to focus and so far succeeding on coding as the core competency of their LLM.

More detail on LLM usage can be found  in the 2025 Mid-Year LLM Market Update 

Conclusion:

While in the west we may consider the only players are; ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini there is in fact much more going on.  Lower cost, more innovative options, albeit with significant cultural concerns, are growing rapidly in China.

The next part of this series of articles will look at the extent to which these models are effectively providing the applications that are necessary for the average small or microbusiness and whether we are nearing an easy on ramp for the uninitiated.

If you would like to jump the gun and have a direct conversation with us simply send us a message on LinkedIn or use the Contact Us form on our website.