ChatGPT traffic falls for the third month in a row, data shows

Much to the chagrin of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT the AI-powered chatbot, is losing some of its hype. To those unaware, ChatGPT was launched back in November.

Last month, a report by Analytics India Magazine indicated ChatGPT was on the verge of bankruptcy. Reportedly, high operational costs and varied interests were the reason for this issue. Also, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted Elon Musk's exit was tough on the American AI company.

Popular AI bots including Microsoft's Bing Chat and OpenAI's ChatGPT seem to be on a downward spiral. So, it doesn't come as a surprise that ChatGPT has seen monthly website visits decline for the third month in a row in August, according to data from analytics firm Similarweb.

The statistics suggest the initial hype surrounding the AI-backed bot has started to fade. In line with this, the average time spent on ChatGPT reduced from 8.7 minutes in March to 7 minutes in August, according to a separate report by Reuters.

Is ChatGPT losing its lustre?

After the total number of visits dropped in June and July by around 10 per cent, Similarweb claims ChatGPT's downward trajectory seems to have eased up in August. Despite experiencing a 3 per cent drop worldwide, the AI bot saw a 0.4 per cent increase in the United States.

The Similarweb report attributes the decline in website visits to the summer break, which explains why the traffic trend became more stable during the back-to-school season in August.

Senior insights manager at Similarweb David F. Carr said: "One theory about why ChatGPT's web traffic dropped over the summer is that school was out, which would help explain why the traffic trend stabilised in August as schoolchildren in the US were back in class in greater numbers toward the end of the month."

Hype is one of ChatGPT's biggest problems

ChatGPT popularised the use of generative AI in daily tasks such as editing and coding. Just two months after its launch, the AI bot reached 100 million monthly active users in January. Before Meta's Threads took the title in July, ChatGPT was the fastest-growing app.

Amid the skyrocketing popularity of the AI bot, some professors tried to find ways to combat ChatGPT plagiarism. In line with this, a Princeton student developed an app to detect if ChatGPT wrote essays submitted by students. The AI bot is also used in the workplace, with some employees using ChatGPT to write code, improve time management and do research.

On top of that, OpenAI is reportedly prepping to roll out new updates to make its chatbot more useful. However, users of OpenAI's latest model, GPT-4 pointed out in July that the chatbot's performance had declined.

A paper from Stanford and Berkeley academics suggests GPT-4 was less accurate in multiple tasks. For instance, the new version had 2.4 per cent accuracy in identifying prime numbers, while it was 97.6 per cent accurate three months earlier.