Americans are embracing AI, while usage in China lags behind

For just over a year now, artificial intelligence has been shaking up the lives of Internet users. In the wake of ChatGPT, dozens of services have sprung up, with varying degrees of success.

While Americans seem keen to use them, people in China haven’t taken them up as readily. And with good reason: access to most of these tools is currently restricted.

The 50 most popular AI services on the web reportedly received more than 24 billion visits between September 2022 and August 2023, with ChatGPT alone accounting for 60% of this total. It’s worth noting that monthly traffic to all these services increased almost elevenfold in one year, despite a steady decline from May to August 2023, due to the banning of these tools in certain jurisdictions, the emergence of dedicated mobile applications and also the school vacation.

People in the US are the most avid users of these tools. Almost a quarter (22.62%) of visits to these sites come from the United States. Next come India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brazil (with over a billion visits per country). These five countries alone account for almost half of all traffic (47%). The major absentee from the top 20 countries with most AI users is China. This is mainly due to the fact that most of these services are banned from use in China, and that the local authorities are keen to develop their own AI tools, the first of which were only launched this summer.

The study also shows that the majority of these visits are made from a smartphone or tablet (63.2%) rather than a computer. This is why most AI software publishers now offer dedicated applications, visits to which are not included in this study.

Currently, the majority of these AI tool users are men (69.5%).

Many of these tools are still subject to geographical restrictions, as this nascent market has to adapt to the different legislation in force around the world.

This research was conducted by WriterBuddy based on data from the SEMrush SEO tool, over the period of September 2022 to August 2023. It focuses on the 50 most-visited sites, which account for over 80% of traffic in the AI sector. – AFP Relaxnews