Interest in AI exploded in the US on the same week that ChatGPT was released

Here is the graph about search volume (interest) in the US for three topics “chatGPT”, “AI” and “machine learning”.

interest in AI ChatGPT and machine learning in the US from Jan 2022 to Jan 2023

If you want to check out the live data by yourself, use this Google trend link.

As you can see from the above graph, interest in AI jumped almost 3-4 times the normal level on the same week ChatGPT was released. “Machine learning” on the other hand, remains stable at a much lower level than both chatGPT and AI. (If you are unfamiliar with reading Google trend data, the scale is relative here, not absolute. So in this case, it means that at the most recent peak in interest AI had more than double of the level of interest vs. chatGPT. This makes sense because chatGPT is just one single application of AI).

The drop in interest over the holiday period in the US makes sense, given that people were traveling to see their families and celebrate the new year.

Washington, DC is among the top 3 subregions interested most in chatGPT and AI

subregion interest in chatGPT and AI in the US Dec 2022 - Jan 2023
Amongst the top 5 subregions with the highest level of interest in AI and ChatGPT, the District of Columbia is at the top. This is somewhat surprising. I hypothesize that given the volume of media reporting on AI and chatGPT, DC is taking a keen interest and perhaps wants to ensure that they can answer media questions when asked or “regulate” the industry in the future.
It is not surprising to see Washington state and California amongst the top 2 as we have most of the big tech company HQs on the west coast.

Using Google Trends, you can also see the related interest in each topic. Below are the top 10 related interests in AI and chatGPT for the same period from a top volume of interest perspective. (Top: The most popular search queries. Scoring is on a relative scale where a value of 100 is the most commonly searched query, 50 is a query searched half as often as the most popular query, and so on.)

related interest in chatGPT and AI in the US Nov 2022 - Jan 2023

You can see some big differences here:

  • chatGPT is a single application, so related interests (queries) from people in the US are all about chatGPT itself. This is with the exception of “google chatgpt”. Searching on Google reveals that there is indeed much talk and discussion about whether chatGPT or similar technologies have the potential to upend Google’s leading position in search.
  • As for related interests to “AI”, they are mainly about the application of AI on art or images, not just text/chat.

From a “rising” related interest perspective, here is the comparison

(Rising – Queries with the biggest increase in search frequency since the last time period. Results marked “Breakout” had a tremendous increase, probably because these queries are new and had few (if any) prior searches.)

rising related queries to chatGPT and AI in the US Jan 2022 to Jan 2023

Midjourney, Lensa, and Stable diffusion are the rising stars under “AI.”

Interest in ChatGPT continues to rise after the new year

Zooming in on the period between Nov 10 and now, you can see the trend much better below

interest in chatGPT between Nov 10 2022 and Jan 14 2023

Overlaying the interest in “AI” shows a similar trend

interest in chatGPT and AI between Nov 10 2022 and Jan 14 2023

It looks like MyHeritage AI is going to be the next break out

MyHeritage AI is going to be the next break out

Last but not least, after I wrote this article, chatGPT interest didn’t decelerate but accelerate quickly. Read more about how interest in chatGPT doubled in early Feb in the US here.

That’s all from me. What do you think?

Chandler

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