ChatGPT’s daily active users in South Korea exceeded the all-time high of 1.25 million, riding the viral Ghibli-style AI images trend.
IGAWORKS reported that ChatGPT’s daily active user (DAU) count in South Korea hit a record 1,252,925 on March 27. While the numbers dipped slightly to 1,212,416 and 1,128,546 on March 28 and 29, the upward trend is expected to continue as social media platforms overflow with Ghibli-inspired animated images.
The phenomenon isn’t limited to South Korea; it’s making waves globally.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X on Monday that when they launched ChatGPT 26 months ago, they had 1 million users in 5 days, but they added 1 million users in just an hour.
The day before, Altman asked people to take a break from generating images, saying, “Can y’all please chill on generating images? This is insane, our team needs sleep.”
On March 27, he wrote, “Our GPUs are melting,” and announced a delay in the rollout for free users to boost efficiency.
Altman embraced the trend by updating his X profile picture to a Ghibli-style image, coinciding with the ChatGPT-4o image generation update. The White House followed suit, posting a Ghibli-style image on its official X account the same day.
The Ghibli-style craze has given OpenAI a golden opportunity to expand its paid subscriber base. Due to the overload of servers, free users face difficulties generating images compared to paid subscribers.
Critics argue that OpenAI is leveraging Studio Ghibli’s reputation for promotional gains and to drive paid subscriptions.
Legal experts generally argue that mimicking artistic styles doesn’t constitute copyright infringement. However, some suggest that if OpenAI used Ghibli’s works without authorization during AI training, it could potentially infringe on copyrights.