ChatGPT on pace to be the fastest growing app in Internet history, ahead of TikTok - analyst

ChatGPT site traffic has continued to surge in January and is on pace to scale to more than 100 million monthly active users (MAUs), faster than TikTok, according to UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley.

While the Chinese social media giant needed 9 months to hit 100M global MAUs, ChatGPT could achieve this goal in only 2 months as it was launched in November 2022. For instance, Instagram needed 2 and a half years while Pinterest took 41 months to hit 100M MAUs.

ChatGPT had 57 million MAUs in December with UBS expecting the OpenAI-developed app to exceed 100M in January, described as a “massive achievement.”

“In twenty years following the Internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,” Walmsley said in a note.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently announced that it invested again in OpenAI, making Azure its exclusive cloud provider. This has likely prompted Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to “wake up.”

“Checks confirm Google is leading in generative AI but integrating this into search would be expensive (albeit likely to fall quickly),” Walmsley added.

“Google is in a catch-22, where it either (1) fails to impress, feeding questions around competitive position or (2) it overcommits, causing concern around (i) monetization risk and (ii) margin erosion.”

UBS projects the generative artificial intelligence (AI) market at about $1 trillion.

“This may seem like a crazy bullish scenario and pricing could fall, but our core point is that the market has potential to be exceedingly large,” the analyst concluded.

By Senad Karaahmetovic

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