Earlier this week, wall street journal informed ChatGPT creator OpenAI missed its internal target of reaching one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of last year – and that’s on top of falling short of its revenue target.
This was an unfortunate revelation that came at a very inopportune time. While the AI industry continues to spend billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure, the returns on all those investments seem as far-fetched as ever.
The Sam Altman-led company is clearly under pressure, with CFO Sarah Fryer warning that it may not be able to pay off future computing contracts if it doesn’t turn things around soon and start making far more money than currently. Then there are rumors of an IPO later this year, which could add to the pressure.
But whether OpenAI will be able to make its number one revenue source — paid ChatGPT subscriptions — grow faster is as unclear as ever. according to recent data From market intelligence firm Sensor Tower Viewed by The VergeUninstalls of chatbot apps increased by a whopping 132 percent year over year in April.
Even worse: Its highly controversial contract with the Pentagon, which Altman later called “opportunistic and reckless”, increased a staggering 413 percent in March compared with the same period last year.
Meanwhile, its top competitor is Anthropic, which recently OpenAI left behind With its valuation of one trillion dollars in secondary markets, the installation of its cloud chatbot is growing faster than that of ChatGPT. According to Sensor Tower, downloads for the cloud have increased by an astonishing 1,000 percent year over year – while there has only been a 14 percent increase for ChatGate over the same period.
As installs continue to slow, the company is actively investigating raising funds through ads Information reports. OpenAI is also considering launching a lower-priced plan called ChatGPT Go to compensate for the lack of full-tier subscriptions.
At $8 a month, the company is hoping to attract 112 million users by the end of this year, while also predicting that Plus subscribers, who currently pay $20 a month, will drop by nearly 80 percent to just 9 million.
Overall, with 122 million users, OpenAI is expected to double its customer base this year. Considering rising app uninstalls and missed user growth goals, this is an extremely difficult goal that should be taken seriously.
Plus, consumers have many other options to choose from, including free ones – at least for now.
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