Number of visits to ChatGPT's website drops for first time since launch

ChatGPT website traffic has dropped for the first time since OpenAI's AI chatbot made its debut in November last year. As expected, this has raised questions about the AI boom, and shaken faith in the much talked about AI revolution.

ChatGPT took the AI realm by storm when OpenAI unveiled it last year. The AI tool was originally designed to instantly provide information based on prompts. However, there are multiple examples of AI misuse. For instance, ChatGPT-like chatbots are used to create content for fake news websites.

In fact, police in China recently busted a couple of gangs involved in creating fake news with the help of ChatGPT. Still, OpenAI continues to bring a slew of new features to its AI chatbot. Following in the footsteps of the American AI company, Google and Microsoft also launched their versions of AI bots dubbed Bard and Bing respectively.

People's interest in ChatGPT may be beginning to wane

Much to OpenAI's chagrin, it looks like ChatGPT is losing its steam for the first time since its 2022 debut. Last month, the AI bot's traffic on mobile and web versions dropped globally. This is also the first time there's been a significant decline in the ChatGPT website's unique visitors and monthly traffic.

According to a report by analytics firm SimilarWeb, the global traffic to ChatGPT's website dropped by 9.7 per cent in June from the previous month. Also, the rate of unique visitors dropped by 5.7 per cent. On top of that, the amount of time visitors spent on ChatGPT's website dipped by 8.5 per cent.

After peaking in early June, downloads of ChatGPT's iPhone app have also fallen, according to data from Sensor Tower. To recap, the bot's iPhone app was launched in May. It is worth noting that the iOS version of ChatGPT has been downloaded a whopping 17 million times worldwide.

ChatGPT is still at the forefront of the AI tools segment

Still, SimilarWeb suggests the ChatGPT site has more visitors than Microsoft's search engine, Bing.com, and Character AI. With 1.5 million monthly visitors, ChatGPT's website is one of the top 20 websites globally. Interestingly, Google Bard and other generative AI-based platforms have also witnessed a dip in traffic lately.

According to the analytics firm, people are losing interest in ChatGPT. However, drawing such a conclusion isn't easy since there is no clear indication of a decline in the traffic or user engagement of ChatGPT. So, the folks at GizmoChina attribute the drop in the number of people visiting the AI bot's website to summer break for schools and college students.

The arrival of ChatGPT last year led to an explosion of interest in AI (artificial intelligence). As a result, big tech companies spared no effort to develop competing tools. Aside from people who use it to ask questions on a wide range of topics, computer coders, students, and even office workers are using ChatGPT to speed up their work.

In fact, some companies replaced their copywriters with ChatGPT. However, the decline in this AI bot's usage is a major sign that some of the hype surrounding chatbots is over-elaborated. Chief executive of Builder.ai Sachin Dev Duggal said, "You had this moment where it was like oh my God it's awesome."

"Then, as people began to encounter the chatbot making up false information, they realised it wasn't as broadly useful as they initially thought," the top executive added. To those unaware, Builder.ai is a start-up that adopts AI to help people build mobile apps.

Analysts from the Swiss bank UBS imply ChatGPT reached its first 1 million user milestone in a week. The bot garnered huge popularity among regular users and AI experts since it is capable of having complex conversations, passing professional exams, and even writing poetry. Tech pundits touted ChatGPT as the fastest-growing consumer app in history. As a result, tech giants began pushing out their competing products.