On Monday, stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen saw a sharp drop. The AI sector, which had been showing signs of weakness even before the holiday, took the biggest hit, with major AI players like Cambridge Technology, Sugon, and 360 reaching their maximum daily loss limit. Overseas AI stocks have also seen a significant slowdown in their rise.
The high position callback in the AI sector, aside from macroeconomic factors, could likely be due to a decrease in traffic for chatbots like ChatGPT. Some data also suggest that AI enthusiasm might not be as hot as the market expected.
The traffic for ChatGPT, according to SimilarWeb, an online analytics tool, showed an impressive growth rate in the earlier part of the year. January saw a month-on-month growth of 131.6%, February 62.5%, and March 55.8%. However, growth significantly slowed in April to 12.6% and further dropped to 2.8% in May.
Data from Morgan Stanley in early June revealed that only 19% of those surveyed had previously used ChatGPT, with a mere 4% saying they relied on it.
SimilarWeb's data for June shows that ChatGPT's growth has clearly slowed down. By June 20, with two-thirds of the month already over, its visitor count was about 38% less than May's. If there are no special stimuli by the end of the month, June's month-on-month traffic could decline.
Data compiled by AceCamp indicates that almost all AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, have seen a stagnation, if not a decline, in user numbers.
However, tech blogger "Little Bear Runs Fast" pointed out that ChatGPT's traffic hasn't experienced the "cliff-like fall" that some self-media outlets described. It seems to be generally stable at the moment, with TOB integration continuing as normal.
OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, suggests that the decrease in user numbers might have been expected. At an AI congressional hearing held on May 16, Altman expressed his concern about computing power bottlenecks: It would be better if fewer people used ChatGPT due to computational constraints.
Furthermore, according to the minutes of a closed-door meeting leaked in early June, Altman believes that ChatGPT's mission is to attract more businesses to integrate its API, rather than take away customer traffic.
Many people want their applications in ChatGPT, but what they truly want is to have ChatGPT in their applications.
Altman stated that OpenAI would avoid competing with its customers. Their aim is to build ChatGPT into a super-intelligent work assistant.
Developers expressed concern that while using OpenAI's API to build products, OpenAI might eventually release competing products. However, Altman reassured that OpenAI would not release more products beyond ChatGPT.
Historically, every great platform company has a "killer" application. ChatGPT's function is to assist customers in improving their products. While the vision of ChatGPT is to become a super-intelligent work assistant, there will be many other uses of GPT that OpenAI will not touch.
In terms of applications, the overseas market has seen the emergence of numerous rising stars. Data service software Llamaindex.ai, for instance, has seen a week-on-week query volume growth of 122.69%. Llamaindex connects large models and enterprise data to create customized Language Model applications, managing data flows and task scheduling. Similar tools include LangChain.
Character.ai, a company committed to building "personality-driven chatbots," also performs exceptionally well. The company is developing next-generation conversation bot technology, with applications in entertainment, education, general Q&A, and more.
