ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, experienced a decrease in website traffic and unique visitors last month, marking the first decline since its launch in November last year. According to Similarweb, a leading analytics firm, global traffic to the ChatGPT website dropped by 9.7% compared to May, while unique visitors fell by 5.7%. Additionally, the amount of time users spent on the site also decreased by 8.5% during the same period.
Similarweb’s senior insights manager, David Carr, attributed the decreasing traffic to the diminishing novelty of the chatbot. However, Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, believes that the data indicates a growing demand for generative AI that provides real-time information.
ChatGPT revolutionized the use of generative AI in various daily tasks, such as writing and coding, and reached an impressive milestone of 100 million monthly active users within two months of its launch. Surging in popularity, it quickly became one of the world’s top 20 websites with over 1.5 billion monthly visits.
While competitors like Google’s Bard chatbot have recently entered the market, Microsoft’s Bing also offers a free chatbot powered by OpenAI. Nevertheless, ChatGPT continues to outperform its rivals.
Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, the head of technology research Americas at Macquarie Capital, suggests that the rapid growth from zero to 100 million users has presented challenges. The heavy infrastructure required to support such a vast user base could lead to decreased accuracy. Hindlian-Bowler also points out the need to adapt the model based on new training data and the potential impact of regulations on the chatbot’s development.
OpenAI expanded the availability of ChatGPT by launching an iOS app in May, which could have contributed to the reduction in website traffic. Some experts also speculate that the summer break for schools may have led to fewer students seeking homework assistance, resulting in a decline in usage.
The ChatGPT app has been downloaded over 17 million times globally on iOS, with peak downloads occurring on May 31. In its first six weeks of availability, it averaged 530,000 downloads per week.
The recent slowdown in growth may help alleviate the high costs associated with running ChatGPT. Answering user queries requires substantial computing power, which OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, described as eye-watering.
While ChatGPT is free to use, OpenAI offers a premium subscription plan priced at $20 per month, providing access to its more advanced GPT-4 model. YipitData estimates that approximately 1.5 million people have signed up for the subscription in the US. OpenAI anticipates generating $200 million in revenue this year.
In addition to ChatGPT, OpenAI earns income from selling API access to its AI models to developers and enterprises. It also benefits from a partnership with Microsoft, which invested over $10 billion in the company.
Despite the recent decline in traffic, ChatGPT remains a prominent player in the AI chatbot market. OpenAI will likely continue to adapt and innovate to maintain its leading position in this rapidly evolving industry.
