The market for AI powered websites and apps continues to reshape itself, with AI Chat platforms like Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) providing a springboard to mass-market acceptance and understanding of the technology. Image generators and other apps, such as Open AI’s Custom GPTs, are increasingly part of the package.
Source: SimilarWeb (3/8/2024)
Web traffic doesn’t tell the complete story as companies like Open AI and Anthropic (maker of the Claude chatbot) may be as interested in licensing their technology to other companies as engaging directly with consumers. Still, web metrics and app engagement are a useful barometer of interest in AI tech.
Key takeaways
With 1.6 billion visits in February, ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) has yet to match the level the volume of worldwide traffic it hit in May 2023 – 1.8 billion visits, according to Similarweb estimates.
However, within the US, ChatGPT hit a new high in February with 208.8 million visits. That includes 10 million visits from people accessing Custom GPTs, which are only accessible to paying customers.
As Google rebranded its chatbot from Bard to Gemini, usage hit a new high of 51.7 million unique visitors to gemini.google.com.
Challengers like Perplexity and Claude are growing but still relatively small, as measured by web traffic.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
