OpenAI, which had dominated the Generative AI market, is seeing its footing shake. User growth is slowing and market share is plunging, while astronomical expense burdens are piling up.
According to traffic analysis firm SimilarWeb on the 30th, ChatGPT's global monthly active users (MAU) in February this year stood at about 5.35 billion, down 6.5% from the previous month. Notably, over roughly six weeks from late last year to early this year, daily visitors plunged 22%, from 230 million to 150 million.
This slowdown in use appears tied to changes in the competitive landscape. Google is expanding its user base by combining AI with search, Android and workplace software, while Anthropic is broadening its reach with a focus on the corporate AI market. The Generative AI market is shifting from a single service–centered structure to a multipolar competitive system.
SimilarWeb says ChatGPT's share of Generative AI web traffic fell from 86.7% in January last year to 64.5% in January this year, a drop of about 22.2 percentage points (P). Over the same period, Google's "Gemini" rose from 5.7% to 21.5%, and xAI's "Grok" expanded its share from under 1% to 3.4%. App analytics firm Apptopia says that in the mobile app market (U.S. DAU basis), ChatGPT's share also slid from 69.1% in January last year to 45.3% in January this year, breaking its monopoly.
The expense structure is the particular problem. According to OpenAI's internal estimates recently obtained by The Information, operating losses this year are projected to reach $14 billion (about 21 trillion won). That is nearly triple the previous year. Over the same period, cash burn is also expected to expand to as much as $25 billion. With massive expense投入 for building data centers and securing high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), the expenditure structure is outpacing the speed of revenue growth, observers noted.
This financial burden is leading to business restructuring. OpenAI ended its video-generating AI service "Sora" on the 24th (local time), a little over two years after launch. The company judged it would be difficult to secure profitability amid high computation expenses and controversies over copyright and deepfakes. The "adult mode" feature for generating adult content was also postponed indefinitely due to investor and internal pushback and technical limits.
Cracks are also being sensed inside the organization. Of the 11 founding members, only two remain at the company: Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman. Recently, controversy over an AI technology contract with the Ministry of National Defense in the United States has added to the turmoil, leading to the departure of key talent. User reaction is also being affected, with the ChatGPT app's deletion rate jumping about 300% in a single day after the contract announcement.
An AI industry source said, "Right now, the AI market has a structure where expense outlays increase as users grow, so in a situation where more traffic does not immediately translate into revenue, it becomes even harder to shoulder expenses if market share falls," and added, "If operators like Google that have search and operating systems (OS) start pushing AI as a default feature, a standalone service like ChatGPT will inevitably be at a structural disadvantage."