ChatGPT usage drops for the first time: Learn why

Kerem Gülen
Jul 10, 2023
Misc
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OpenAI's ChatGPT has been a game-changer in the tech sphere since its introduction last year. It sparked the much talked about "AI revolution," paved the way for countless new enterprises, and witnessed an exponential growth across the globe. But it seems, the ChatGPT usage honeymoon period is now taking a bit of a pause.

According to The Washington Post, there's been a slight but significant dip in the user numbers of ChatGPT for the first time ever. In June, both mobile and desktop traffic to the bot's website saw a nearly 10% decline globally. The app's downloads on iPhone also saw a decrease. There's no concrete explanation why ChatGPT usage is experiencing such a downturn in user engagement, but speculations are plentiful.

This revelation mainly comes from Similarweb's data, a firm renowned for web analytics and market intelligence. Their analysis traces the trajectory of the explosive web traffic following the launch of ChatGPT in November of the previous year, leading to a rapid increase in engagement. However, a noticeable slowdown occurred in March, followed by a slump in May. The report also draws attention to a dip in visitor engagement on the ChatGPT website, suggesting that even those who visit the site are spending less time there. A parallel can be drawn to another AI chatbot, Character.AI, which also experienced a drop in engagement levels in June.

It raises a question whether the initial fervor over conversational AI chatbots is waning. As per Similarweb's data, ChatGPT website's global desktop and mobile web traffic dropped by 9.7% from May to June, and in the U.S, this decrease was slightly higher at 10.3%. This decline was noted for the first time on a month-to-month basis. Sensor Tower's observation, which noted that downloads of the ChatGPT's iOS client dipped in June after reaching a peak earlier in the month, complements this data.

Image courtesy of Similarweb

Furthermore, Similarweb's data corroborated the fading interest in ChatGPT. From May to June, unique global visitors to the ChatGPT website reduced by 5.7%, and the duration spent on the website saw an 8.5% decrease. The traffic for Bing's desktop and mobile websites, both of which include ChatGPT, saw a surge between February and March, but this traffic has been on a decline since April.

Even with the dip in ChatGPT usage, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, seems to be weathering the storm quite well, despite the hefty estimated daily cost of $700,000 to keep the website up and running. According to Similarweb, the ChatGPT website essentially acts as a loss leader, generating sales leads for OpenAI, which then licenses its technology for use in other applications. Revenue primarily flows from the subscribers of the OpenAI site who seek the latest version of ChatGPT.

Image courtesy of Similarweb

Presently, subscribers to OpenAI have access to the latest GPT-4 version, whereas the free users can utilize an earlier version. Even though OpenAI's site isn't ad-driven, the subscription model they utilize isn't exactly a goldmine since Microsoft's Bing offers GPT-4 version of OpenAI for free. Microsoft is a key investor in ChatGPT.

The reasons behind the drop in ChatGPT usage remain speculative. Is it the often bizarre outputs from AI, or the nebulous legal complexities surrounding AI-generated content? Or, perhaps, people are just losing interest in conversing with computers? While there's no definitive answer, Similarweb speculates that the initial "novelty [of AI] has worn off." Another possibility suggested by the Post is the onset of summer break for college students who were previously using the app for educational assistance, leading to an overall reduction in engagement.

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Comments

  1. Seeprime said on September 8, 2023 at 4:12 pm
    Reply

    Missing from the “story”: Ukraine’s agreement to never use Starlink for military purposes. This is why.

    Ghacks quality is AI driven and very poor these days since AI is really artificial stupidity.

    1. Karl said on September 12, 2023 at 9:10 pm
      Reply

      “Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson forced to ‘clarify’ book’s account of Starlink incident in Ukraine War

      “To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.”
      https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/elon-musk-biographer-walter-isaacson-corrects-detail-about-starlink-in-ukraine/

      1. Karl said on September 14, 2023 at 5:58 pm
        Reply

        I posted above comment to:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/

        Not to the following article about Geforce where I currently also can see it published:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/

  2. Anonymous said on September 11, 2023 at 10:09 pm
    Reply

    Well, using Brave, I can see Llama 2 being decent, but it is still not great?
    All these AI stuff seems more like a ‘toy’ than anything special, I mean, it is good for some stuff like translations or asking quick questions but not for asking anything important.

    The problem is Brave made it mostly for summarizing websites and all that, but all these Big tech controlled stuff, won’t summarize articles it doesn’t agree with, so it is also useless in many situations where you just want it to give you a quick summarization, and then it starts throwing you little ‘speeches’ about how it doesn’t agree with it and then it never summarizes anything, but give you all the 30 paragraphs reasons why the article is wrong, like if I am asking it what it thinks.

    SO all this AI is mostly a toy, but Facebook with all the power they have will be able to get so much data from people, it can ‘train’ or better say, write algorithms that will get better with time.

    But It is not intelligence, it is really not intelligence all these AI technology.

  3. Tom Hawack said on September 14, 2023 at 2:11 pm
    Reply

    Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
    Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

    The eternal problematic of regulating, here applied to AI. Should regulations (interventionism) have interfered in the course of mankind ever since Adam and Eve where would we be now? Should spirituality, morality, ethics never have interfered where would we be now? I truly have always believed that the only possible consensus between ethics and freedom is that of individuals’ own consciousness.

    Off-topic : Musk’s beard looks like a wound, AI-Human hand-shake is a quite nice pic :)

    1. Karl said on September 14, 2023 at 5:55 pm
      Reply

      Haha, oh dear, Tom.
      I thought that the comments system issue where comments shows up under a totally different article was fixed. But seeing your comment here, the “error” is clearly still active. Hopefully it is sorted as soon as possible.

      1. Tom Hawack said on September 14, 2023 at 6:40 pm
        Reply

        Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
        Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

        Hi Karl :) Well, let’s remain positive and see the good sides : one’s comment appearing within different articles (the one it was written form and for, another unrelated one) brings ubiquity to that comment : say it once and it’s published twice, double your pleasure and double your fun (“with double-mint, double-mint gum” and old ad!). Let’s forget the complications and inherited misunderstandings it leads to. Not sure the fun is worth the complications though. Which is why, with a few others here, I include Article Title & URL with comment, to ease a bit the pain.

        This said, I’m trying to find a logic key which would explain the mic-mac. One thing is sure : comments appearing twice keep the same comment number.

        For instance my comment to which you replied just above is originally :

        [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/#comment-4573676]

        It then got duplicated to :

        [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/#comment-4573676]

        Same comment number, which let’s me imagine comments are defined by their number as before but now dissociated in a way from their full path : that’s where something is broken, as i see it.

        First amused me, then bothered, annoyed (I took some holidays to lower the pressure), then triggered curiosity.
        I’m putting our best detectives on the affair, stay tuned.

      2. Karl said on September 16, 2023 at 8:58 am
        Reply

        Hehe, yes indeed, staying positive is what we should do. Good comes for those who wait, as the old saying goes. Hopefully true for this as well.

        Interesting that the comments number stays the same, I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.

        Not useful for us, but hopefully for the developers (if there are any?), that perhaps will be able to sort this comments error out. Or our detectives, I hope they work hard on this as we speak ;).

        Cheers and have a great weekend!

      3. Karl said on September 16, 2023 at 9:18 am
        Reply

        Whoops, my bad. I just now realized that the error I saw in your example URL (error-code-0x0003) was part of the linked article title and generated by Geforce! Oh dear! Why did I try to make it more confusing than it already is lol!

        Original comment:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/#comment-4573788

        Duplicate:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/iphone-12-radiation-levels-are-too-high/#comment-4573788

      4. Tom Hawack said on September 16, 2023 at 9:20 am
        Reply

        Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
        Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

        @Karl, you write,

        “I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.”

        I haven’t noticed that up to now but indeed brings an element to those who are actually trying to resolve the issue.
        I do hope that Softonic engineers are working on fixing this issue, which may be more complicated than we can imagine. Anything to do with databases can become a nightmare, especially when the database remains accessed while being repaired, so to say.

        P.S. My comment about remaining positive was, in this context, sarcastic. Your literal interpretation could mean you are, factually, more inclined to positiveness than I am myself : maybe a lesson of life for me :)

        Have a nice, happy, sunny weekend as well :)

      5. 💾 said on September 16, 2023 at 12:35 pm
        Reply

        Correct: AI is certainly overhyped, it’s also advertised by some shady individuals. It’s can also be misused to write poor quality articles or fake your homework.

        https://wordpress.com/support/post-vs-page/
        https://wordpress.com/support/restore/

        16 September 2023, this website is still experiencing issues with posts erroneously appearing in the wrong threads. There are even duplicates of the exact same post ID within the same page in some places.

      6. 💾 said on September 16, 2023 at 8:41 pm
        Reply

        Clerical error “[It] can also be misused …” you just can’t get the staff nowadays.

        Obviously [#comment-4573795] was originally posted within [/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]. However, it has appeared misplaced within several threads.

        Including the following:
        [/2023/09/15/redmi-note-13-specs-release-date-and-more/]
        [/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003]

  4. Anonymous said on September 14, 2023 at 3:39 pm
    Reply

    “How much radiation is dangerous?
    Ionizing radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays, is more energetic and potentially harmful. Exposure to doses greater than 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) in a short period can increase the risk of immediate health effects.
    Above about 100 mSv, the risk of long-term health effects, such as cancer, increases with the dose.”

    This ban is about NON-ionizing radiation limits, because there is too much radio wave power from the iphone. This has nothing to do with the much more dangerous ionizing radiations like X-rays, that are obviously not emitted at all by mobile phones. I invite you to correct your article.

  5. Anonymous said on September 17, 2023 at 5:03 pm
    Reply

    “Aaro.mil makes history as the first official UFO website”

    I wonder if it’s just smelly crowdsourcing for the spotting of chinese balloons or whatever paranoia they’re trying to instigate, or if they are also intentionally trying to look stupid enough to look for alien spaceships, for whatever reason. Maybe trying to look cute, instead of among the worst butchers of history ?

  6. Anonymous said on September 17, 2023 at 9:12 pm
    Reply

    “The tech titan’s defense”
    “Whether he provides a clear explanation or justifies his actions”
    “the moral compass”

    You take it for granted that this company should agree being a military communications provider on a war zone, and so directly so that his network would be used to control armed drones charged with explosives rushing to their targets.

    You don’t need to repeat here everything you read in the mainstream press without thinking twice about it. You’re not just pointing interestingly that his company is more involved in the war that one may think at first and that this power is worrying, you’re also declaring your own support for a side in an imperialist killfest, blaming him for not participating enough in the bloodshed.

    Now your article is unclear on how this company could be aware that its network is used for such military actions at a given time, which has implications of its own.

    Reading other sources on that quickly, it seems that the company was: explicitly asked ; to extend its network geographically ; for a military attack ; at a time when there was no war but with the purpose of triggering it, if I understood well. You have to be joking if you’re crying about that not happening at that time. But today you have your war, be happy.

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