Korea's Generative AI ecosystem is rapidly entering a saturation phase. User growth for the overwhelmingly No. 1 service, ChatGPT, has visibly slowed, and Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude are also failing to show clear expansion. Some services posted temporary gains, but the view that the AI market has already entered the stage where "those who will use it are already using it" is gaining traction.
According to app analytics platform Mobile Index on Dec. 8, ChatGPT's domestic mobile monthly active users (MAU) last month totaled 13.3 million. The user base remains overwhelming, but the pace of growth has slowed. In fact, ChatGPT's MAU jumped nearly 110% in a month from 5.09 million in March to 10.72 million in April, but subsequent increases stayed at 11.29 million in July (+5%), 12.03 million in August (+6%), and 12.8 million in September (+6%). The growth rate fell further to +2% in October and +2% in November. Notably, the "number of new install devices," a metric for new entries, fell about 82% in seven months from 4.66 million in April to 840,000 in November.
The same trend is evident globally. Market research firm Sensor Tower said ChatGPT's global download growth rate was 85% year over year, lower than the Generative AI app average (110%), and that global MAU growth from August to November was only about 6%. Sensor Tower analyzed, "ChatGPT is already in a saturation phase where growth potential is gradually diminishing because it has secured the largest market."
Rival services are also failing to generate a clear rebound in Korea. Gemini's global MAU rose 30% from August to November after the launch of its image generation model "Nano Banana." In contrast, its domestic mobile user base climbed into the 90,000 range in July–August, then fell back to 66,974 last month. New installs also stagnated between 190,000 and 240,000 since October, after peaking at around 240,000 in July.
Anthropic's Claude is not much different. Last month's domestic MAU rose to 149,708, but that was an increase of only about 30,000 from July, not enough to change the market order. Its strength is text-centric capability, but analysts say that diverges from demand in Korea that heavily influences user inflow, such as image and video generation.
Grok, serviced by Elon Musk's xAI, also saw limited expansion after an initial spike. Grok's domestic MAU surged in a short period from 70,000 in March to 190,000 in April and rose to 480,000 in October, but slipped slightly to 479,369 last month. While features like "adult/spicy mode" and video generation succeeded in driving short-term inflows, long-term growth drivers remain limited.
An AI industry official said, "The next competition for AI services is in the enterprise space, and only services that can continuously deliver stable quality and accuracy within actual work systems will survive."