ChatGPT traffic decreased in June

ChatGPT, the world's most popular AI chatbot launched in November last year, this June saw a drop in traffic for the first time in a month, according to Similarweb.

Desktop and mobile traffic to the ChatGPT website fell 9.7% in June compared to May. Meanwhile, the number of visitors to ChatGPT's website decreased by 5.7% and the time visitors stayed on the site also decreased by 8.5%.

David Carr, Senior Director of Insights at Similarweb, said the drop in traffic is a sign that the chatbot's novelty has disappeared. While RBC Capital Markets analyst Rishi Jaluria explained the data points to more demand for generalized AI with real-time information.

ChatGPT traffic decreased in June Picture 1

ChatGPT went viral with its use of artificial intelligence to assist with everyday tasks such as writing and programming, generating ideas, etc., and achieved 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch.

ChatGPT is the fastest growing website ever, now has more than 1.5 billion monthly visits and is in the top 20 websites in the world.

Needless to say, ChatGPT has far surpassed Bing, Microsoft's search engine using OpenAI's technology.

There are also a number of ChatGPT competitors, including Google's Bard chatbot, which has been launched in the past few months.

"When you go from zero to 100 million users quickly, you're bound to have a hard time. Infrastructure is unresponsive and will become overloaded leading to poorer accuracy. It's a combination of having to change what the ChatGPT model is trained on and dealing with the potential consequences of regulation," commented Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, US Research Team Leader .

ChatGPT traffic decreased in June Picture 2

In May, OpenAI also released ChatGPT application on iOS operating system in May, which also resulted in possible reduction of traffic from ChatGPT website. Some also suggested that the shift in traffic could be related to the school summer break, when students are less likely to seek help from ChatGPT to "get help" with homework.

According to data.ai, as of July 4, ChatGPT app has been downloaded more than 17 million times on iOS operating system globally. The data analytics company also says downloads peaked on May 31 and are still very popular in the United States, averaging 530,000 downloads per week during the first six weeks of availability.

The recent drop could help keep ChatGPT running costs under control, as it requires powerful computing power to answer questions. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, described the cost of running the service as "incredible".

ChatGPT is free to use, but it also offers users a more premium service option. Users can spend $ 20 (about 475,000 VND) per month to be able to use OpenAI's more advanced features, GPT-4. According to the latest estimates from YipitData, about 1.5 million people have signed up for this service plan in the United States.

It is expected that OpenAI will have about $ 200 million (nearly 5,000 billion VND) in revenue this year. In addition to ChatGPT, the company makes more money by selling API access to its artificial intelligence models to developers and businesses directly and through a partnership with Microsoft, which has invested more than $10 billion in the company.

Lesley Montoya

Update 24 July 2023