Elon Musk might be feuding with OpenAI over its non-profit structure, but it has just gone past one of his prized internet properties.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has surpassed Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to claim the position of fifth most visited website globally, according to the latest traffic data from SimilarWeb. While most major websites experienced declining traffic, ChatGPT demonstrated exceptional growth with a 13.04% month-over-month increase in visits. The AI chatbot platform now commands a 2.30% share of global web traffic, attracting an impressive 5.14 billion monthly visits.
This milestone is particularly notable as ChatGPT has managed to surpass X.com, which fell to sixth place with 1.94% of global traffic and 4.34 billion monthly visits. The data reveals X experienced a significant 5.21% decline in month-over-month traffic.
Traditional Tech Giants Still Dominate
Despite ChatGPT’s remarkable ascent, traditional tech giants continue to dominate the top positions:
- Google maintains its commanding lead with 36.38% of global traffic (81.31 billion monthly visits), despite a 3.18% decrease in traffic.
- YouTube follows with 12.83% traffic share (28.68 billion visits), showing a 2.13% decline.
- Facebook holds third place with 5.17% of traffic (11.56 billion visits) and a 3.05% decrease.
- Instagram ranks fourth with 2.76% of traffic (6.17 billion visits) and a 1.65% drop.
The Only Growth Story Among Top Sites
What makes ChatGPT’s achievement particularly striking is that it stands as the only website in the top ten showing positive growth. All other major platforms, including Wikipedia (down 6.06%), Reddit (down 3.77%), and WhatsApp (down 2.75%), experienced declining visitor numbers.
ChatGPT’s rise is even more impressive given it was launched just two and a half years ago. In April last year, ChatGPT was the 14th most visited website, and it’s risen 9 ranks in just 12 months. It had risen to 8th in late 2024 and then to 6th in January this year.
Industry Implications
This shift signals a fundamental change in how people are using the internet. While traditional search engines and social media platforms have dominated web traffic for years, ChatGPT’s rise suggests users are increasingly turning to AI assistants as an alternative interface for information retrieval and task completion.
What This Means for Business
For businesses, ChatGPT’s rapid rise presents both opportunities and challenges. Companies increasingly need to consider how their content and services can be discovered and delivered through conversational AI interfaces, not just traditional search engines and social media.
OpenAI continues to expand ChatGPT’s capabilities through regular updates and integrations with third-party plugins and services, potentially positioning it as a new gateway to the internet that could rival traditional search engines in the coming years.
As AI adoption accelerates, the battle for user attention is clearly evolving beyond conventional platforms. With its continued growth trajectory, ChatGPT may soon challenge even larger platforms, reshaping how billions of people worldwide access information and interact with technology.