A UBS study revealed Wednesday that ChatGPT, the popular chatbot from OpenAI, reached 100 million monthly active users only two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever.
As cited in the report, the analytics firm Similarweb reported an average of 13 million unique visitors for ChatGPT in January, more than double December’s number.
“In 20 years following the internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,” UBS analysts wrote in the note.
It took TikTok about nine months after its global launch to reach 100 million users and Instagram 2 and a half years, according to data from Sensor Tower.
Twitter was founded in March 2006 and reached 100 million monthly active users in September 2011, which is approximately 5 years and 6 months.
Facebook was founded in February 2004 and reached 100 million monthly active users in August 2008, which is approximately 4 years and 6 months.
Instagram was launched in October 2010 and reached 100 million monthly active users in February 2013, which is approximately 2 years and 4 months.
ChatGPT can generate articles, essays, jokes, and poetry based on prompts. This tool was made available to the public for free in late November by OpenAI, a company backed by Microsoft.
On Thursday, OpenAI announced a $20 monthly subscription, initially for users in the United States only. It would provide a more stable and faster service as well as the opportunity to try new features first, the company said.
Analysts believe the viral launch of ChatGPT will give OpenAI a first-mover advantage against other AI companies. The growing usage, while imposing substantial computing cost on OpenAI, has also provided valuable feedback to help train the chatbot’s responses.
The company said the subscription revenue would help cover the computing cost.
The availability of the tool has raised questions about the facilitation of academic dishonesty and misinformation.
Last month, Microsoft announced another multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI in the form of cash and provision of cloud computing.