Analysis shows that the ChatGPT mobile app is seeing a slowdown in download growth and daily usage

The growth of ChatGPT mobile apps may have peaked, according to a new analysis of download trends and daily active users provided by third-party app intelligence Apptopia. It estimates that new user growth, measured by percentage changes in new global downloads, slowed after April. Additionally, global daily active user growth has stalled and stabilized in recent weeks.

The company looked at global daily active user (DAU) growth and found that the numbers have started to level out over the past month or so.

Even though October is only half over, the company says it is on track for an 8.1% drop in terms of month-over-month percentage change in global downloads.

To be clear, this is a look at the download growthno the total Downloads. In terms of the huge number of new installations, the ChatGPT mobile app is still doing well, with millions of downloads per day.

However, seeing download growth stalling could indicate that the overall pace of growth of the app is slowing down. In the case of ChatGPT, increased competition and changes in the characteristics of its AI model can be blamed.

Digging deeper, other metrics show that average time spent per daily active user in the US, specifically, is down 22.5% since July, and average sessions per daily active user in the US is down 20.7%.

This indicates that US users are spending less time in the ChatGPT app and opening it fewer times per day. The U.S. user churn rate also declined and stabilized over this period, indicating that the app is now retaining its core users and seeing fewer who come in briefly to try, then abandon the app.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond simply peaking, there are other factors that can play a role here. This includes not only competition from Google Gemini, but also user engagement changes after an April update that was designed to make the chatbot’s AI model less flatter. This continued with the release of GPT-5 in August, which was said to be less attractive as well.

However, Apptopia notes that ChatGPT’s average time spent per DAU and average sessions per DAU metrics were trending downward before the sharp rise of its competitor, Google Gemini, which soared to the top of the charts in September thanks to the release of Google’s new AI photo model, Nano Banana.

So, while Gemini’s growth may have influenced some of the recent declines in ChatGPT’s fundamental metrics, it doesn’t explain the overall trend, the company says.

Additionally, Apptopia notes that if average time spent per daily active user decreases, but not average sessions per daily active user, it could indicate that people are becoming more efficient with their ChatGPT queries. But since both are in decline, this is not the case.

Instead, Apptopia says it’s possible that the trial phase with ChatGPT has ended, and it’s now part of users’ daily routine. People are more likely to use the app when they need it or remember to use it, compared to the increased usage it saw when it was still new.

For OpenAI, this means the company will have to invest in app marketing or release new features to boost some of these core metrics again, just as other mobile apps have to do. She could no longer rely on Grandma alone for growth.