Persona of ChatGPT users! Exploring the actual usage based on behavioral data

ChatGPT is a service provided by OpenAI and is a high-performance chatbot that responds to users' questions in a conversation format.

All you need to do is register as an account with OpenAI. You can also use your Google or Microsoft account, making it very easy to use. Basic use is free, but you can pay $20 a month for a more advanced version that allows you to enter an unlimited number of words and requests.

Now, let's take a look at the data regarding access to the chat page to find out the reality of ChatGPT usage. For the analysis, we will use "Dockpit," an online behavioral analytics tool from VALUES, Inc. that allows you to analyze competitor websites and investigate trends using behavioral data updated monthly that is all accessible within the browser.

Since its release in November 2022, the number of users has steadily increased, but in February 2023, the number of users exploded, reaching approximately four times that of the previous November. This can be attributed to the release of the paid version on February 9, 2023 and the update of the free version on February 13, 2023, as well as increased media coverage and rapid spread of awareness.

Both the number of sessions (number of visits) and average time spent per user increased in March 2023, approximately double that of the previous December. This indicates that ChatGPT is not a temporary trend and that the number of heavy users is increasing at the same time as awareness is expanding.

Furthermore, since ChatGPT has opened its API to the public, the number of environments where ChatGPT is available is expected to increase. It is already available on well-known services such as LINE, Bing, and Google Chrome. In light of this situation, it seems likely that the ChatGPT trend will continue.

Next, let's look at the characteristics of ChatGPT users.

First, also using the data regarding the access to the chat page, we will look at the user demographics. The graph shows that 70% of the users are male, and about half of the users are in their 20s and 30s. It seems that the website is particularly popular among young men.

Next, we look at the times and days of the week that users use ChatGPT. About 25% of the users use it between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., and about 40% use it on any day of the week, suggesting that many people use it like they would use a search engine, regardless of the time of day, i.e., school, work, or personal time.

To summarize everything mentioned until now, the persona of a trend-conscious, hard-working businessman surfaces.

To verify the certainty of this persona, we will now conduct an in-depth analysis using VALUES' analytics tool "story bank," which uses online behavioral data and survey data to aggregate movements and attributes before and after specific online actions among target users.

The next four graphs show the media usage time of the same analyzed target users. Compared to all Internet users, ChatGPT users use VOD and e-books more than TV. This may be a reasonable considering that ChatGPT users tend to be younger.

However, newspaper use is not significantly different from that of all Internet users. Newspapers are a tool for obtaining highly accurate and up-to-date information on social and economic trends, and although ChatGPT users tend to be younger, they are likely to be the ones who are taking advantage of these features unique to newspapers.

The next three graphs below show ChatGPT users' usual time spent on social media. ChatGPT users are more likely to use Twitter and Instagram and spend more time on these platforms than the average Internet user. This indicates that ChatGPT users use social media to check trends.

Twitter also has more users and longer usage time than Instagram. Users on Twitter enjoy sharing ChatGPT solutions, which suggests that Twitter may be a better match for ChatGPT than the more visually oriented Instagram. Perhaps this is a good fit with ChatGPT. It appears that users are using Twitter as their main medium for gathering information on a regular basis.

Next, let's look at occupations and annual income.

Looking at occupations, there are many ChatGPT users in "company management" and "student" groups than for all Internet users.

Furthermore, a look at the annual household income of the ChatGPT users also shows that it is generally higher, with many in the "10 million to 15 million yen" bracket.

Based on the above, ChatGPT users are likely to be students and executives with high annual incomes.

Next, let's look at the other websites that ChatGPT users are viewing in the 180 minutes before and after visiting ChatGPT chat page.

Many of the top websites are directly related to ChatGPT, such as the OpenAI homepage. Google accounts and Gmail are probably what they used to register as a user.

HubSpot, ranked 10th, is a tool that allows marketing and customer service to be bundled together, and we can see that users in marketing and sales by occupation are visiting the website.

With Qiita, a knowledge-sharing service for engineers, ranking 13th, and Github, a software development platform, ranking 14th, it can be that many engineers use ChatGPT.

DeepL translation ranking 12th also suggests that users are checking the quality of ChatGPT's translations.

Based on the above, it can be assumed even among businessmen who are sensitive to trends, high-frequency ChatGPT users tend to be those who are aspirational and have high annual incomes, executives who develop their businesses based on trends, and engineers who are interested in the latest technologies.

As for the large percentage of students, it is possible that in addition to personal use, they may also use it in classes.

As ChatGPT has become a hot topic, we have heard more and more stories of students submitting reports completely written by ChatGPT, or of works being saturated by the large number of submissions of content written on ChatGPT in response to public contests for novels, tanka poems, and the like. In reality, however, it can be inferred that the serious ChatGPT users are executives and engineers who have high annual incomes and need to be quick to spot trends.

Although ChatGPT may seem to be a tool that can accurately answer all kinds of questions, it is inevitable that without a proper understanding of its usage and creative use of prompts, it will give incorrect or muddled answers.

However, as evidenced by the fact that ChatGPT is already being used in the business world, it will become a reliable partner if its features are understood and used skillfully. It will be interesting to see how ChatGPT, which continues to increase its number of users, will affect society in the future.

▼Data from Dockpit was used in this case study. Dockpit is an online behavior analytics tool provided by VALUES, Inc., and it allows you to access online behavioral data (updated monthly) via your browser so you can research competitor websites and investigate trends. There is a FREE version of Dockpit, so if you are interested in using it, please register below.