OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the immensely popular artificial intelligence chatbot that captivated users worldwide when it launched last November, appears to be experiencing a potential slowdown in its decline of monthly website visits, according to data from analytics firm Similarweb.
In August, global desktop and mobile website visits to the ChatGPT website decreased by 3.2 percent to a still substantial 1.43 billion, marking the third consecutive month of decline. This decline follows larger drops of approximately 10 percent in each of the previous two months. Notably, the average time spent by visitors on the website has also been decreasing since March, falling from an average of 8.7 minutes per visit to 7 minutes in August, Reuters news report said.
However, there is a glimmer of hope in the form of a small uptick in worldwide unique visitors for August, rising from 180 million to 180.5 million users.
One potential factor contributing to this stabilization in traffic is the return of schools for the academic year in September. Some educational institutions have begun to incorporate ChatGPT into their curricula, and U.S. traffic to ChatGPT saw a slight increase in August, aligning with the return of American schools.
David F. Carr of Similarweb, who monitors ChatGPT and its competitors, suggests that students seeking homework assistance may be a driving force behind this shift in traffic. He notes that the percentage of younger users on the website had dropped over the summer but is now showing signs of recovery.
ChatGPT created a sensation when it launched, sparking widespread use of generative AI for various daily tasks, including editing and coding. It quickly reached 100 million monthly active users by January, just two months after its launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever before the debut of Meta’s Threads. ChatGPT now ranks among the top 30 websites globally.
While ChatGPT faces competition from other AI chatbots like Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot, it continues to be a popular choice for users. Additionally, OpenAI has expanded its offerings by releasing the ChatGPT app on the iOS platform in May, potentially diversifying its user base and traffic sources.
ChatGPT is available for free, but it also offers a premium subscription for $20 per month. OpenAI generates revenue not only from ChatGPT but also by selling access to its AI models to developers and enterprises, both directly and through a partnership with Microsoft, which invested over $10 billion into the company.
