Global traffic on ChatGPT is stabilizing after a significant drop during the summer months. In the US, ChatGPT is back on the growth path.
According to the analysis platform Similiarweb, access to ChatGPT in the USA increased by half a percent in August. Worldwide, it decreased by three percent.
This is a significant stabilization after sharp declines of ten and eleven percent in June and July. Following a temporary peak in May, the usage curve is flattening out at a high level.
In addition to web traffic, there are approximately six million users of the ChatGPT app for iOS and Android, according to Similiarweb. The number of unique visitors (counted only once during the analysis period) increased by three percent in the U.S. and by 0.3 percent worldwide compared to the previous month.
According to Similarweb statistics, ChatGPT remains one of the largest websites in the world with 1.4 billion visits. The strongest month so far was May 2023 with 1.8 billion visits.
Partner Microsoft, which hoped to use OpenAI's technology to make its Bing search more attractive, is already behind ChatGPT with 1.2 billion visits to Bing.com and so far hasn't been able to take market share from Google.
OpenAI is expected to generate more than a billion in revenue this year. Monthly revenue is expected to exceed $80 million. Microsoft reportedly owns 49 percent of OpenAI.
Students are likely to come back for more
Similarweb suspects that the drop in users during the summer months could be due to lower usage by students. The statistics show that the 18 to 24 age group in particular accesses ChatGPT less during the summer months. In July, about 27 percent of ChatGPT users belonged to this age group, compared to 30 percent in April. In general, seasonality is likely to play a role.
Starting in September, the number of users may increase again as students begin to use ChatGPT more as a learning and writing tool. ChatGPT has the most users in the 25-34 age group. Similarweb does not track users under the age of 18.
OpenAI recently launched a business version of ChatGPT called ChatGPT Enterprise, which is not included in the Similarweb tracking for chat.openai.com. This may affect future web reports, depending on the success of ChatGPT Enterprise.