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ChatGPT is facing tough competition from Character AI in mobile app usage. According to analytics firm Similarweb, Character AI had 4.2 million active users across its iOS and Android apps in the US in August. ChatGPT had about six million active users of its apps stateside during the same period.
Both of these AI (Artificial Intelligence) companies launched their respective mobile apps a few months back. While people still prefer to use the web version of ChatGPT more than the app, it’s the other way around for Character AI. That’s likely because of the kind of AI service it provides. Unlike ChatGPT, which is a conversational AI tool that can generate answers to any question, Character AI lets you have fun conversations with fictional characters or AI-generated avatars of famous personalities.
“Character AI is a playful companion, not just a homework helper,” Similarweb describes. As such, it’s more popular among the younger demographic, who prefer to access the tool through their mobile device rather than use the web version on a computer. Almost 60 percent of its users fall under the 18-24-year-old age bracket, the report states. ChatGPT’s usage share for this age bracket is less than 30 percent. It’s even lower for Google Bard. This explains the recent drop in ChatGPT traffic.
Character AI held up strong while ChatGPT traffic dropped over the summer
For the uninitiated, ChatGPT suffered a global decline in monthly visits for three consecutive months between June and August this year. The data supplied by the same source showed a sharp decline in traffic in June and July, with signs of a nearing rebound in August. In the US, the decline began in May itself but the curve saw a small uptick in August. Since it was a school holiday in the US during this time, ChatGPT’s decline may be attributed to lesser usage by school-going users.
Character AI, on the other hand, is less useful for school or education-related tasks. So its usage number held up well over the summer. In the process, it almost caught up to ChatGPT in terms of active mobile app users. The latter service, which started this generative AI craze, still leads by a huge margin in overall usage across platforms. It registered 1.4 billion total visits worldwide in August, with the US contributing about ten percent (140 million) of that. In comparison, Character AI had just over 200 million users globally last month.
