Exponential growth but for how long: DeepSeek's meteoric rise in AI-land continues unabated, fresh Similarweb data shows

• DeepSeek skyrocketed to fame, dethroning ChatGPT, and causing stock jitters
• It quickly grew from 88,000 to 49M visits, but is slowing now, Similarweb data shows
• Despite 614% growth, curiosity in DeepSeek is fading and ChatGPT remains king

Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek, which was trained for a fraction of the price of Western competitors, seemingly appeared out of nowhere when it topped the App Store charts, dethroning ChatGPT, and causing significant stock market turbulence. Like most so-called “overnight” successes, it has actually been around longer than many realize, but its rise has skyrocketed over the past fortnight.

According to fresh Similarweb data, on November 9, 2024, when ChatGPT led AI platforms with 100.4 million global daily visits, followed by Bing.com with 57.3 million, Google’s Gemini with 7.5 million, and Character.ai with 6.5 million. DeepSeek was also present in the rankings, but much lower down with just 88,200 visits.

From there, DeepSeek began a slow but steady climb, reaching 336,800 visits on Christmas Day before hitting 1 million daily views on December 29. After that, its growth accelerated rapidly. On January 25, DeepSeek moved into third place in the AI rankings table with 8.2 million daily visits, surpassing Google Gemini in fourth with 7.1 million, but still trailing behind Bing with 56.4 million and the leader, ChatGPT, with 99.3 million.

Seeing a decline

DeepSeek’s best day was January 28, when it recorded 49 million daily visits. Since then, however, its numbers have been steadily declining. On January 29, visits dropped to 40.8 million, then fell further to 34.1 million on January 30, and it continued decreasing to 29.2 million on January 31.

Week-over-week, DeepSeek has experienced meteoric growth of 614.2%, but the recent downward trend suggests it may be losing momentum. Many users, driven by curiosity, have tried the platform but either found it lacking compared to more established competitors or simply didn’t find enough reason to continue using it regularly.

The distrust Western governments and businesses have of Chinese tech products won't have helped either. ChatGPT’s numbers dropped over that three-day period from January 29 also, but it comfortably remains top dog, with 121.9 million views on January 31.

Whether DeepSeek will recover and regain its momentum remains to be seen, but its rapid rise means it has already made a lasting impact in the competitive AI landscape.

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