Boom Times For ChatGPT

OpenAI’s chatbot is surging after a period of sluggish growth. After DeepSeek, that’s never been more crucial.

ChatGPT is booming. After months of stagnant usage in early 2024, the chatbot hit an inflection point and is now far outpacing its competition, according to new data from analytics firm Similarweb.

OpenAI’s flagship bot hit 3.8 billion visits on desktop and mobile web in January 2025, more than doubling Bing, its nearest competitor, and leaving Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Perplexity far behind. The traffic surge is a remarkable reversal for ChatGPT following a usage stagnation that lasted longer than a year. After reaching 1.9 billion visits in March 2023, ChatGPT didn’t surpass that number until May 2024.

“The first rush was about novelty, people trying it out. They do seem to have transitioned to where more people have found practical uses for the app,” David Carr, editor for insights news and research at SimilarWeb, told me.

The ChatGPT boom could not have arrived at a better time for OpenAI, which recently saw its AI models effectively equalled by the open source DeepSeek. The incident caused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to admit the company was on the wrong side of history regarding open source and would maintain a smaller lead than it had previously. OpenAI’s application business is now far more important to its long-term success, and it’s delivering.

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The inflection point for ChatGPT seems to have occurred just as OpenAI announced its GPT-4o update, which included an advanced voice mode. The new voice interface would be far more responsive and human sounding than anything on the market, and even a bit flirty. Following OpenAI’s 4o presentation, Altman infamously tweeted “her,” a reference to a movie starring Scarlett Johansson where a human falls in love with an AI voice that she portrays. Johansson, who’d been approached by OpenAI but refused to collaborate, expressed outrage and threatened legal action following the announcement. It’s possible the publicity helped OpenAI more than it hurt.

Beyond voice mode, OpenAI has improved ChatGPT in several areas. It’s incorporated image generation with Dall-E directly in the bot, it’s released better models — including the o1 reasoning model that DeepSeek challenged — and it’s appeared to hallucinate less. The bot’s also been helped by continued public interest and a willingness among people to try different uses and not abandon it after disappointing results.

OpenAI shouldn’t get too comfortable though. Last week’s DeepSeek surge challenged not only its models, but ChatGPT as well. On Tuesday January 28, at the height of the DeepSeek publicity wave, ChatGPT registered 139 million visits to DeepSeek’s 49 million, according to Similarweb. Almost overnight, DeepSeek built one third of the audience that ChatGPT took years to establish.

But OpenAI does have the leading AI brand in ChatGPT, something that should be useful as more people seek to engage with artificial intelligence. This weekend, the company is seeking to burnish its brand by running its first Super Bowl ad. Google is expected to run a lengthy Super Bowl ad for Gemini as well. If OpenAI can make ChatGPT into the ‘Coke’ of AI, it stands to maintain a lead even if chatbots commoditize.

As for the rest of the pack, it’s not looking pretty. Compared to ChatGPT’s 3.8 billion visit in January, Bing received 1.8 billion, Gemini received only 267 million, Perplexity received 99.5 million, and Anthropic’s Claude received 76.8 million. These are web-only numbers, but they’re directionally reliable. And they show OpenAI opening up a massive lead, with competition that isn’t really close.

Listen to Ranjan Roy and I break down these numbers on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast app of choice.

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What Else I’m Reading, Etc.

OpenAI is buying a Super Bowl ad [WSJ]

Google deletes pledge to not develop AI for warfare [Washington Post]

OpenAI opens ChatGPT Search to those who don’t login [The Verge]

Lina Khan says DeepSeek shows why Big Tech needs a breakup [New York Times]

And here’s the counterpoint to Khan [Spyglass]

Ilya Sustkever’s firm is eyeing a $20 billion+ valuation in a new funding round [Reuters]

AI is showing real promise when it combines reasoning with agentic capabilities [One Useful Thing]

Trump is cancelling the government’s media contracts [Axios]

CHEQ Acquires Deduce, Expanding Go-To-Market Security Platform with Identity Graph for Human and AI-Generated Fraud Prevention [Reuters] (Sponsored)

Number of The Week

50%

Cruise is cutting half its workforce after capitulating to Waymo and leaving the robotaxi game.

Quote of The Week

I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open source strategy

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking in a Reddit AMA following the rise of DeepSeek

This Week On Big Technology Podcast: NVIDIA's Plan To Build AI That Understands The Real World — With Rev Lebaredian

Rev Lebaredian is the Vice President, Omniverse & Simulation Technology at NVIDIA. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation about NVIDIA's push to develop AI that understands the dynamics of the real world, including physics. In this conversation, we cover how NVIDIA is building this technology, what it might be useful for (things like robotics and building common sense into AI models), how it will change labor, and even potentially warfare. We also cover how AI videos today possess a solid understanding of the real world. Tune in for the first few minutes where we discuss Lebaredian's perspective on DeepSeek and Jevon's Paradox.

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