ChatGPT searched more than Chandrayaan-3 on Google in 2023

The impact of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in 2023 needs no introduction as we head towards the end of what can be considered the biggest year for generative AI. While you can now find AI in everything from smartphones to advanced digital art and music generating tools, one name stands at the forefront of the ongoing AI revolution – ChatGPT.

Launched in November 2022, the text generator quickly grew in popularity as everyone from students to working professionals found ChatGPT use-cases that made their lives easier. Soon, AI was powering other chatbots, and generating images, music, and even web-series opening credits (Yes Marvel, we still remember Secret Invasion). ChatGPT grew so fast, it had Indians searching for the tool more than they searched for Chandrayaan-3, ISRO’s latest moon mission.

As per the Google Search Trends 2023 report, ChatGPT was googled more in India than Chandrayaan-3, Instagram Threads and even Hamas under Google’s ‘What is‘ section. In fact, ChatGPT was the third most searched ‘What is’ term in India this year, beaten only by political topics like the G20 summit and UCC.

How big was ChatGPT in 2023?

While rivals like Google Bard or Microsoft’s Bing Chat were quick to jump on the chatbot bandwagon, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been the undisputed king of text generation throughout 2023.

There are multiple examples to drive home this point. When Apple launched the iPhone 15 series in September 2023, the new configurable Action Button that replaced the iconic Mute Switch was used by many users as a direct shortcut to ChatGPT, making this free AI tool (now an app) sort of the default AI assistant over Apple’s own Siri.

ALSO READ: How to use the iPhone’s Action Button as a ChatGPT shortcut

An Indian Express report reveals that the tool attracted about 14.6 billion total visits across the year between August 2022 and September 2023. To add some perspective, that was about 60 per cent of the total traffic towards the top 50 AI-based tools which included names like Midjourney, QuillBot and Google Bard.

How did ChatGPT grow so popular within a year?

What’s surprising about the growth of ChatGPT is not the scale, but the timeline. AI was bound to be the buzzword of 2023, but unlike Crypto and NFTs which died down after 2022 came to an end, ChatGPT just kept on growing through the year. Beginning from a closed-access website, the tool was readily available as a free app on the Google Play Store and the Apple App store just months later.

While there could be an endless number of reasons theorising the quick rise of the tool, one of these reasons could be abundant use-cases of generative AI. Unlike cryptocurrency, which few truly understood and even fewer actually invested in, ChatGPT was an easy-to-use interface, with users always being one prompt away from having the world’s information at their fingertips, presented exactly how they wanted it.

Further, ChatGPT was the first AI-driven experience most regular people actually got to experience. With artificial intelligence being repeatedly teased over the years in popular culture through movies like the Terminator series all the way to the newest Mission Impossible sequel, curious tech enthusiasts could finally have a taste of AI for themselves in 2023 thanks to ChatGPT – only to discover that the tool wasn’t just a gimmick, but actually useful.

ALSO READ: Make It More: What you need to know about the latest ChatGPT trend

Which brings us to the last aspect that probably helped ChatGPT conquer the internet this year – versatility. ChatGPT can bring you information on any topic and in any form. The tool can create a tutorial to build a PC or a recipe to cook your favourite pasta in seconds.

For students, the tool helped with assignments. For writers, ChatGPT was the cure to creative blocks. For coders, ChatGPT was a ticket to leaving office early. Everyone could find a use-case for themselves while using ChatGPT, and word-of-mouth would, as usual, do the rest.

As we head into next year, ChatGPT and generative AI is only set to get bigger and better, with the apps now supporting audio and image inputs, even more users could be using ChatGPT in even more creative ways. If you had any concerns about AI taking over the world, it’s safe to say 2024 might just be a very interesting year.