Ghibli effect: ChatGPT usage hits record after rollout of viral feature

ChatGPT users have surpassed 150 million for the first time this year since the viral Ghibli image generation feature was rolled out.

The frenzy to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT's image-generation tool led to a record surge in users for OpenAI's chatbot last week, straining its servers and temporarily limiting the feature's usage.

The viral trend saw users from across the globe flood social media with images based on the hand-drawn style of the famed Japanese animation outfit, Studio Ghibli, founded by renowned director Hayao Miyazaki and known for movies such as "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro".

Average weekly active users breached the 150 million mark for the first time this year, according to data from market research firm Similarweb.

"We added one million users in the last hour," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an X post on Monday, comparing it with the addition of one million users in five days following ChatGPT's red-hot launch more than two years ago.

Active users, in-app subscription revenue and app downloads reached an all-time high last week, according to SensorTower data, after the AI company launched updates to its GPT-4o model, enabling advanced image generation capabilities.

Global app downloads and weekly active users on the ChatGPT app grew 11% and 5%, respectively, from the prior week, while in-app purchase revenue increased 6%, the market intelligence firm said.

However, the chatbot has been hit with a series of glitches and low-scale outages over the past week as it deals with a spike in traffic due to the popularity of its image-generating tool.