ChatGPT's Website Traffic And User Visits Decline In June: Report
ChatGPT experienced a decline in website traffic and unique visitors in the month of June, marking the first-ever decrease since its launch in November.
The data from analytics firm Similarweb revealed a 9.7 per cent decrease in worldwide desktop and mobile traffic to the ChatGPT website compared to May, while unique visitors dropped by 5.7 per cent. Additionally, the amount of time spent by visitors on the website decreased by 8.5 per cent.
ChatGPT made an explosive entry into the market, captivating users with its ability to assist in daily tasks such as writing and coding. It achieved the remarkable milestone of 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch. With over 1.5 billion monthly visits, ChatGPT quickly became one of the top 20 websites globally, surpassing Microsoft's Bing search engine, which also utilizes OpenAI's technology.
In recent months, several competitors to ChatGPT, including Google's Bard chatbot, have emerged. Microsoft's search engine Bing also provides a chatbot powered by OpenAI to users for free. Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, head of Technology Research Americas at Macquarie, suggested that the rapid growth from zero to 100 million users might have caused some growing pains, leading to decreased accuracy and the need for adjustments in training the model, as well as potential implications of regulation.
Moreover, the launch of the ChatGPT app on the iOS system in May could have contributed to the decreased website traffic, as users opted for the app instead. The summer break for schools was also mentioned as a possible factor, with fewer students seeking assistance with their homework during this period.
Despite the slowdown in growth, ChatGPT remains popular, with over 17 million downloads on iOS globally as of 4 July, according to data.ai. The analytics firm reported that downloads peaked on May 31 and have remained consistently high, particularly in the United States, with an average of 530,000 downloads per week in the first six weeks of availability.
The recent slowdown in growth may help manage the substantial costs associated with running ChatGPT, which requires significant computing power to process user queries. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, previously described the cost of running the service as "eye-watering."
While ChatGPT is free to use, OpenAI also offers a premium subscription that allows users to access the more advanced GPT-4 model for USD 20 per month. According to estimates from YipitData, around 1.5 million people in the US have signed up for the subscription.
(Inputs from Reuters)
