ChatGPT traffic drops for the third consecutive month: what are the reasons?
Despite the decline in users, it is still the most used chatbot in the world.
ChatGPT is experiencing a decline in the number of users. For the third consecutive month, the platform presented a decrease in traffic, according to data from Analisisweb, which begins to show a trend after the peak of users achieved between February and May this year.
The report states that OpenAI’s artificial intelligence application registered a 3.2% drop in user traffic in August 2023. A figure that adds to the 10% drop in June and July of the same year.
This number adds up both desktop and mobile app visits worldwide, reaching 1.43 billion visits in August.
Why ChatGPT’s user numbers are dropping
According to the analysis of the firm in charge of the study, the chatbot traffic could be entering a stabilization phase, after a strong worldwide exposure and expectation, which generated millions of users entering the platform to get to know it, but are returning to use it regularly.
This is reflected in the permanence of users on the platform, which has also shown a decrease. Since March of this year, the average time of use has dropped by 8.7%, reaching only 7 minutes in August.
This suggests that users are not only visiting ChatGPT less frequently, but are also reducing the time they spend on the platform when they do.
Despite these setbacks, there is a small increase in the number of unique users globally. During August, the platform managed to surpass 180 million unique users, rising from 180 million in July to 180.5 million in August. This suggests that despite the decline in overall traffic, the platform continues to attract new users.
One possible explanation for the drop in ChatGPT traffic over the past few months is that this is vacation time in many parts of the world, such as the United States and Europe, where they are in summer.
“Students looking for help with homework seem to be part of the explanation: the percentage of younger users of the website dropped over the summer and is now starting to recover,” said David Carr, spokesperson for Similarweb.
It is important to remember that ChatGPT had a sharp rise in popularity. Last January, just two months after its launch, the platform announced that it had 100 million monthly active users, and during February and May it reached its peak traffic.
At that time, it became the fastest growing application in its category, until Meta launched Threads, its platform intended to compete with X, which surpassed that same figure in a couple of weeks.
Despite all this backdrop, the app is still among the top 30 websites in the world, according to Reuters. Moreover, it is still the most used chatbot with 500 million monthly visits, surpassing Bard and Character.AI, considering that it is already available on iOS and Android through an official app.
Added to this is the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise, a platform designed specifically for companies, with a special focus on privacy and security, with which OpenAI seeks to grow in the corporate environment and provide specific solutions there.
This is not to say that the competition does not continue to grow. Google continues to add features to its platform and there are reports that Apple is investing in the development of new artificial intelligence systems. Among the company’s projects, there is speculation that one of them could be a more powerful language model than ChatGPT.