ChatGPT has stunned users with its potential in the months since its November launch. It has proved to be competent, if not successful, in taking business school tests and writing a State of Union speech as Elvis Presley, and within two months of launch, ChatGPT had over 100 million monthly active users—a feat that TikTok achieved in nine months and Instagram, in two and a half years.
ChatGPT’s big splash has been followed by a heightened A.I. interest among tech giants. Microsoft invested $10 billion into ChatGPT’s parent, OpenAI in January and shortly after, announced an upgraded search engine and web browser with ChatGPT included. Google launched its own version of a chatbot called Bard, and China’s Baidu announced that it would unveil its A.I.-powered “Ernie Bot” by March.
