Abu Zar Mishwani
ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot by OpenAI, experienced a decrease in monthly website visits for the third consecutive month in August.
However, there are indications that this decline might be slowing down, as reported by analytics company Similarweb.
In August, the ChatGPT website saw a worldwide decrease in desktop and mobile visits by 3.2%, totaling 1.43 billion visits. This decline follows similar drops of around 10% in the two months prior.
Additionally, the average time visitors spend on the site has been decreasing each month since March, going from 8.7 minutes to 7 minutes in August.
However, in August, the number of unique visitors to the website globally saw a slight increase, rising from 180 million to 180.5 million users.
The return of schools in September could potentially boost ChatGPT’s traffic and usage, as some educational institutions have started to adopt it.
In August, there was a slight increase in ChatGPT traffic in the United States, coinciding with the reopening of American schools.
According to David F. Carr, an analyst at Similarweb who regularly monitors ChatGPT and its competitors, “Students seeking homework help appears to be part of the story: the percentage of younger users of the website dropped over the summer and is now starting to bounce back.”
ChatGPT sparked a surge in the use of generative AI for various daily tasks like editing and coding. It achieved a milestone of 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch. Generative AI leverages past data to generate fresh content, such as writing essays or poems.
Before Meta’s Threads launch, ChatGPT was the fastest-growing consumer application ever. Today, it ranks among the top 30 websites globally.
In the current year, several competitors to ChatGPT have emerged, including Google’s Bard chatbot. Microsoft’s search engine Bing also offers a free chatbot powered by OpenAI.
OpenAI further extended its accessibility by introducing the official ChatGPT app on iOS and Android. This expansion could potentially impact the traffic on its website. While ChatGPT remains free, it also offers a monthly premium subscription for $20.
In addition to ChatGPT, OpenAI generates revenue by selling access to its AI models to developers and businesses. This includes direct sales and a partnership with Microsoft, which made a substantial investment of over $10 billion into the company.