Analytics firm SimilarWeb reports that ChatGPT, a popular chatbot launched in November, saw its website’s monthly traffic drop for the first time ever this past June.
Similar Web data showed that the global demand for visiting the desktop and mobile version of the site declined by 9.7% in June compared to May, while the total number of site users decreased by 5.7%. The time spent by visitors browsing the site also decreased by 8.5%.
ChatGBT created a surge in the use of generative AI in everyday tasks from traditional typing to writing cryptographic codes, reaching 100 million monthly active users in January just two months after its launch.
The fastest growing application
It is the fastest growing application ever offered to users, boasts of reaching 1.5 billion visits per month, and is one of the top 20 websites in the world.
Visits to ChatGPT, for example, far exceeded visits to the search engine Bing, which is run by Microsoft, the backer of OpenAI that uses its technology.
Several competing applications for ChatGBT have been launched in the past few months, including the Google-owned chatbot Cool. Microsoft’s Bing search engine also offers a free chatbot developed by OpenAI.
gpt chat app
“I think there are increasing difficulties when you get to 100 million users from scratch that quickly,” said Sarah Hendlian Bowler, Macquarie’s Head of Technology Research Americas. “A very heavy infrastructure is going to result in lower fidelity. It’s a mixture of needing to change something.” The model trained him and the need to deal with the potential implications of regulation.”
Possible downside factors
Also in May, OpenAI released the ChatGBT app on Apple’s iOS operating system, which may pull some visitors from the website. Some also link the change in user numbers to the summer holidays in schools, when fewer students will look for help with their homework.
The recent slowdown in growth may help control the operating costs of GPT Chat, which requires massive computing resources to answer queries. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, described the costs of running the services as “massive”.
ChatGBT is free to use, but it also offers a premium subscription for which users can pay $20 per month to enjoy the services of the most advanced model, GPT-4. More than half a million people have signed up to get the subscription, according to estimates from IbIt Data.
OpenAI expects to generate $200 million in revenue this year. In addition to ChatGPT, the company makes money by selling access to its AI models via an API directly to developers and companies and through a partnership with Microsoft, which has invested more than $10 billion in the startup. .
