State of GPT chat apps
In recent months, we have witnessed a surge in GPT chat apps. Numerous studios, small teams, and independent developers have seized the opportunity to capitalize on this trend, creating hundreds, if not thousands, of GPT-powered apps.
In this analysis, I will delve into several popular apps, scrutinizing their functionality, download numbers, and revenue.
A brief overview of the critical comments concerning the apps list:
- Revenue - Cumulative. It's important to note that for newer apps, the reported figures can be off by as much as 50%. However, they're usually directionally accurate.
- RPD - Revenue per device. This metric is the revenue divided by the number of downloads. It does not necessarily reflect the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a paying user.
- Other metrics - These are either self-explanatory or not crucial for our purposes.
Let's take a look at the overall revenue graph. The first apps started to emerge in December 2022, and the real growth began in March 2023 when some larger players launched their apps and began aggressive traffic acquisition. The projected revenue for May 2023 is around ~$10M, a significant increase from $3M in March. Note that there are numerous other GPT chat apps not included in this list, and their revenues could potentially contribute an additional 50-100% to these figures.
Chat with Ask AI
First app is Chat with Ask AI. Despite earning nearly $1M per week, the app doesn't stand out for its unique features.
Judging from the speed and quality of the output, it appears to utilize either GPT-3 or 3.5, with only basic functionality available:
- Pre-defined system prompts for specific use cases, organized by category (Education, Fun, Travel, etc.)
- Chat history
- Free-flow chat
Some interesting corks and features:
- Shareable link to the entire chat
- Text-to-voice, although the voice is fairly monotonous with no option for customization
Publisher, Codeway Dijital Hizmetler Anonim Sirketi has more than 20 apps with 100M+ downloads and is obviously very proficient in traffic acquisition, which is the key to success in this category now.
ChatOn - AI Chat Bot Assistant
Next app, ChatOn - AI Chat Bot Assistant. This app saw an impressive revenue trajectory with roughly $800K earned in the second week of May alone:
ChatOn is a better designed app with plenty of pre-defines prompts (tasks) and ideas for chats but text generation speed is incredibly slow.
App's publisher AIBY has more than 40 apps with 120M+ downloads.
Genie - AI Chatbot
Our third app of interest is Genie - AI Chatbot. The app has all the basic features - tasks sorted by topics, chat ideas, access to GPT-4 (via a premium subscription), and more.
However, Genie's revenues and downloads seem to be declining due to the increasingly fierce competition in this category:
I liked the idea of "wishes" - aka free messages that get replenished once a day, if you're not going to buy premium subscription it can be helpful. Additionally, notifications about new wishes prompt you to return to the app thus improving retention metrics.
Chai - Chat with AI Friends
Skipping a bunch of unremarkable apps I wanted to pay closer attention to Chai - Chat with AI Friends. The app was first released in March 2021 and uses custom tuned GPT-J 6B model to provide users with access to an engaging (and uncensored) bots.
At ~$70k per week (but in reality probably more, something's wrong with numbers - details), the app is the first in this review to utilize custom LLM and the company behind the app shares some of the research results with the public.
The app itself is a selection of custom bots created by community with a weird propensity towards anime characters. An 18+ filter can be disabled in the app's settings, allowing users to engage in more adult-oriented chats.
Poe – Fast AI Chat
Poe – Fast AI Chat, by Quora, stands out as one of the most feature-heavy and complex products, offering users the choice between different LLMs - GPT-4, GPT-3.5, Anthropic's Claude, and others.
A fun fact – the majority of Poe's revenue comes from Hong Kong, with a notable share coming from Saudi Arabia.
Poe's interface is one of the most complex and packed with features. While the ability to select one of seven models or view other users' shared conversations seem nice in theory, I doubt that majority of people care about this and it is easy to get confused in attempts to waddle through dozens of UI elements.
Poe also has one of the most expensive subscriptions, priced at $199/year or $20/month.
ChatGPT
Last but not least is the official ChatGPT app by OpenAI. Having launched less than a week ago, and being available only in the US (though it expanded to more countries today and stats aren't updated yet), it already accumulated over $500k in in-app purchases (subscriptions through the web are not accounted for here) and more than 1.2M downloads without any ads. Numbers are likely much higher as the analytics tool I use tend to show lower stats for new and viral apps.
The app's UI is remarkably minimal, with precise speech-to-text capability, sync to the web, and advanced data controls. It is what it is and nothing more.
Final thoughts:
- It's too late for indie developers without big marketing budgets. You'll be competing with the official OpenAI app and numerous large studios that can outbid you on Meta, Google, Apple, TikTok, and more.
- I don't see current top apps holding their ground for long. With everyone and their mother rushing to create GPT chat apps, I've heard it's not economically viable for big studios to buy traffic in this category anymore. Also at the average ~$30/year for subscription before platform fees it would be tough to acquire a significant amount of users with the free option by OpenAI available in more countries.
- It could be still worth developing a niche app, like psychotherapy bots, dating, or adult chats. Although this would require more efforts than just making a an iOS wrapper app.
- The OpenAI app won't kill all other apps. There are plenty of cases they'll reluctant to cover and there is always room for multiple big apps in any category. There are calculator apps making hundreds of thousands per month and several plant identification apps making millions despite Apple having a built-in feature that will identify a plant on your photos for free.