Since ChatGPT first launched, how have its users changed? Investigating the actual situation regarding ChatGPT users

Now, let's take a look at the data around the visits to the ChatGPT's website. For analysis, we will use VALUES' online behavioral analytics tool “Dockpit,” which allows you to analyze the competitors’ websites and research trends using behavioral data that is updated monthly, all within your browser.

First, the number of users visiting the ChatGPT website is approximately 2.73 million as of September, which has been gradually decreasing since peaking at approximately 5.49 million in April. In Japan, students start at the new school year and many start at a new company in April, and some people may have taken advantage of this opportunity to try out popular services, but they were not able to make much use of them and may have stopped using them.

Next, the number of sessions per person decreased by about 3 sessions from 7.1 sessions in March 2023 to 4.4 sessions in September. However, the decline has become shallower since May 2023, indicating that the frequency of use among regular users has stabilized.

Next, the number of page views per person peaked in March to April 2023, when it was around 30 page views, and has decreased significantly to around 8 page views. Once you have chatted with ChatGPT, it will be saved as a new chat page and the URL will change. In other words, the number of page views seems to correlate with the number of new interactions initiated. Rather than asking about a variety of different topics, it seems that it is becoming more popular to communicate within a few topics while maintaining a particular context.

In addition, the average time spent has decreased significantly, as has the number of page views, which is considered to be a sign that in addition to the decrease in the number of topics asked at one time, people have a better understanding of how to use it and how to find out what they want in a shorter amount of time.

Next, we will look at changes in the user persona. Firstly, the gender ratio is approximately 70% male and 30% female, and for age groups, approximately 30% are in their 20s, 20% in both people in their 30s and 40s, 15% are in their 50s, 8% in their 60s, and 5% are over 70. Both the gender ratio and age group are almost unchanged from March 2023.

From this, we can see that even if the parameters of users change, the trends of the genders and generations (age groups) who use it out of interest and the genders and generations (age groups) who continue to use it did not change.

Similarly, there are almost no changes in the hours of use or days of the week, and it seems that the tendency to use it for both work and personal purposes has not changed.

From here, we will conduct a more thorough analysis using VALUES' analytics tool story bank” (only in Japanese), which uses online behavioral data and survey data to aggregate the movements and attributes of target users before and after a specific online behavior.

First, let's look at the usage time of each media.
As of March 2023, ChatGPT users used more VOD and e-books than TV compared to overall Internet users. As of September 2023, the proportion of time spent using each media has not changed significantly.

This suggests that ChatGPT users choose the content they want and continue to use newspapers to gather information.

Next, regarding the time spent using social media, ChatGPT users use X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram more than overall Internet users, and they spend more time using X (formerly Twitter) than Instagram and have a long usage time. This has not changed since March 2023. ChatGPT users continue to check trends on social media, especially X (formerly Twitter).

Next, let's look at occupation and annual income. The percentages are noticeably higher among general company employees and students, which are about 5 points and 8 points higher, respectively, than overall Internet users. In addition, the annual income was found to be high overall, and the most notable group making “≥ 10 million yen

As of March 2023, the proportion of business owners and students was higher than overall Internet users, but as of September 2023, the proportion of business owners has fallen to the same level as those of overall Internet users while on the other hand, the proportion of general company employees is increasing. However, the fact that the annual income is generally high and the percentage of people in the group making more than 10 million yen and less than 15 million yen is high is unchanged from March 2023.

This suggests that managers were only using ChatGPT as part of understanding trends, and that it was actually general company employees who were more likely to utilize ChatGPT in their work. It can also be expected that they recognized the convenience of ChatGPT and encouraged their employees to use it.

Now, let's take a look at other websites visited 180 minutes before and after visiting the ChatGPT website.

The websites that are ranked have hardly changed. Most of the websites are OpenAI's official website and different ChatGPT web pages, and the websites ranked 9th, 10th, 12th, 17th, and 19th are Internet-related summary websites that publish many articles about ChatGPT. In addition, websites for engineers, such as Qiita and GitHub, remain in the rankings, which suggests that ChatGPT is often used by engineers. DeepL is still in the rankings, but it is used together for a quite long period of time for merely checking ChatGPT’s translation accuracy, so it is possible that ChatGPT and DeepL are used together for practical benefits for translating.

Furthermore, Bard, a generative AI released by Google and made compatible with Japanese in May 2023, ranks in 16th place, and it can be seen that there are users who are comparing generative AIs.

The official ChatGPT app has been released, and iOS and Android versions are available.
They have been available in Japan since May and July, but as shown in the chart below, the number of users has not increased. From this, it is thought that the explosive spike in popularity itself has calmed down and that only those who are interested are continuing to use it.

We have compared the characteristics of current ChatGPT users to those of March 2023. The user group that is paying attention is almost the same as it was in March when its popularity was in full swing, but the number of users who use it for the sake of keeping up with the trend has declined, and those who were able to understand how to effectively utilize it around the time ChatGPT was first released, such as engineers, continue to use it now.

In addition to the release of the app, in October 2023, ChatGPT made it possible to generate illustrations, further expanding its range of uses. It looks like it will be used more widely in creative fields in the future, and we will have to keep an eye on its trends to see if it will once again gain attention in Japan.

▼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.