Title: OpenAI’s ChatGPT Experiences Surge in Demand, Exceeding Capacity
OpenAI’s transformative language model, ChatGPT, has witnessed an unprecedented surge in demand, surpassing the capacity of the company. CEO Sam Altman recently took to Twitter to announce that following the remarkable announcements made at the Dev Day developer conference, the demand for ChatGPT has reached overwhelming heights, exceeding the company’s current capacity.
As a result of this unprecedented demand, OpenAI has temporarily halted new subscriptions to ChatGPT-Plus, the subscription that grants access to the highly anticipated GPT-4 Turbo model. Unfortunately, the immense popularity of ChatGPT has also attracted the attention of malicious actors. OpenAI shared that the service experienced outages due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
After a slight decline during the summer months, ChatGPT’s web traffic has made a remarkable recovery and is currently hovering within ten percent of its peak in April 2023, both worldwide and within the United States, with just a four percent difference. According to Similarweb, this resurgence in traffic could be attributed to the resumption of schools in the US, with students increasingly utilizing ChatGPT to seek assistance with their homework. Additionally, the enhancements made by OpenAI to improve the product could also be a contributing factor.
Notably, in May 2023, ChatGPT reached its pinnacle with a staggering 1.8 billion visits worldwide before experiencing a slight dip to 1.4 billion in August. However, it has seen a resurgence in September, with the number now standing at around 1.5 billion visits. If the trend continues, October might witness a substantial increase, with an expected visit count of 1.7 billion.
Simultaneously, the usage of ChatGPT’s Android application is also experiencing a global month-on-month growth. The recent update of the app introducing voice recognition and playback capabilities has positioned it as a formidable challenger to voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.
Within the United States, ChatGPT’s web traffic achieved its peak in April, amassing a remarkable 187.5 million visits. While there was a decline to 137.4 million visits in June, September witnessed a resurgence with a traffic count of 164.3 million. Based on recent data, it is projected that the web traffic might exceed 195 million visits in October, setting a new record.
Analyzing the data, it becomes evident that ChatGPT is no longer on its initial rapid growth trajectory. However, this by no means implies a decline. The slight dip observed during the summer months was misinterpreted as a sign of decline, but the latest numbers indicate stability and resilience. The future remains intriguing as OpenAI introduces new features like the GPTs and the faster GPT-4 Turbo, which does not necessarily possess enhanced capabilities compared to the original GPT-4 model launched in March. These developments might spark renewed growth in the medium term.
In conclusion, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is experiencing an extraordinary surge in demand, surpassing the company’s current capacity. Despite experiencing outages due to a DDoS attack, ChatGPT’s web traffic has rebounded impressively, reaching levels close to its peak in April 2023. The resurgence of ChatGPT’s popularity can be attributed to multiple factors, such as the resumption of schools in the US and the product enhancements made by OpenAI. The future growth trajectory of ChatGPT remains reliant on the introduction of new features and models.
