(Credit: SOPA Images / Contributor / LightRocket via Getty Images)
By changing the name of its AI chatbot from Bard to Gemini, Google spurred new interest and brought more traffic to the system than ever before.
Google made the change on Feb. 8, and traffic immediately began climbing, according to new data from web analytics company Similarweb. It peaked on Feb. 22, the same day controversy over its image generator swirled, at 17.5 million visits. Traffic has come back down to 13.2 million daily visits as of March 3, but still above the daily average for Bard.
(Note: The remaining visits to bard.google.com in the graph below "represent people going to that address before being redirected" to gemini.google.com.)
(Credit: Similarweb)However, Gemini is still only the third most-popular AI chatbot, and its traffic lags far behind ChatGPT. ChatGPT's traffic has also clearly surpassed search engine Microsoft Bing, after first matching its traffic in March 2023.
(Credit: Similarweb)In the US, ChatGPT usage reached a new traffic high in Feb. 2024, with 208.8 million visits. That's up 87% year-over-year and 15% month-over-month. Globally, ChatGPT's traffic has not quite returned to its May 2023 peak of 1.8 billion visits, achieving 1.6 billion visits in Feb. 2024.
ChatGPT has also found success with its new GPTs. Billed as "personalized agents" for a wide range of tasks, including logo generation, translation services, and even romantic love, GPTs are only available to those with a ChatGPT Plus subscription ($20 per month).
(Credit: Similarweb)Up-and-coming AI tools such as Claude, Perplexity, and Character.AI have a long way to go before catching ChatGPT.
Microsoft's AI-powered Copilot raked in the least traffic of any system included in the study. Just one component of the wider Bing ecosystem, Copilot serves "as a distinct destination for accessing AI functionality," Similarweb says. "[It's] one piece of a much broader Microsoft strategy to incorporate CoPilot-branded AI features into Office, as well as tools for developers and designers."
(Credit: Similarweb)