The frenzy to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT’s image-generation tool led to a record surge in users for OpenAI’s chatbot last week, straining its servers and temporarily limiting the feature’s usage.
Average weekly active users breached the 150 million mark for the first time this year, according to data from market research firm Similarweb.
“We added 1 million users in the last hour,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an X post on Monday, comparing it with the addition of 1 million users in five days following ChatGPT’s red-hot launch more than two years ago.
Active users, in-app subscription revenue and app downloads reached an all-time high last week, according to SensorTower data, after the AI company launched updates to its GPT-4o model, enabling advanced image generation capabilities.
Global app downloads and weekly active users on the ChatGPT app grew 11 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, from the prior week, while in-app purchase revenue increased 6 per cent, the market intelligence firm said.
