There has been a significant increase in online traffic to ChatGPT with the release of OpenAI's new AI model. GPT-4o, a more capable AI model for both free and paying users, was unveiled by OpenAI last week. Since then, the ChatGPT.com website has seen an increase in traffic that exceeds 100 million hits daily, as reported by Similarweb, a traffic analysis firm.

According to a blog post from Similarweb, traffic to ChatGPT hit 96.3 million visits on May 13 and then surpassed 100 million visits over the next two days. To put things into perspective, in May 2023, ChatGPT had a monthly high of 1.8 billion visitors. With 2.3 billion visits, ChatGPT should smash that record if present traffic patterns persist.

"In the seven days leading up to May 17, web traffic for chatgpt.com was up 27.7% versus the previous week, and traffic to the openai.com corporate domain was up 25%," Similarweb reports. "Over that same period, the daily active user count for the ChatGPT mobile app was up 11.5%, based on combined iOS and Android users in the US."

A summer downturn in 2023 believed to be caused by the fact that many children were not in school, while interest in ChatGPT appeared to peak a year ago. Nevertheless, despite growing competition from other chatbots like Google's Gemini, the latest traffic estimates from Similarweb indicate ChatGPT still has lots of space to expand.

In order to make the chatbot easier to find, OpenAI moved its original domain from chat.openai.com to chatgpt.com, which coincided with the traffic spike. Furthermore, users may now utilize the chatbot without logging in with an OpenAI account.

There are indications that many Americans are not aware of ChatGPT, even with the growing number of users. According to poll data released by Pew Research in March, just 23% of US respondents have ever utilized ChatGPT.