Men are twice as likely as women to use generative AI: study.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT generates 60x more traffic than Google’s conversational generative AI engine, Bard, and delivers industry-leading 30-minute session durations. But perhaps the biggest news from an analysis of the top 50 AI tools on the web is that while 69.5% of users were men, only 30.5% were women.
While generative AI tools go a long way toward getting work done and opening up new opportunities, this is a problem for the future.
According to a new report from AI writing tool WriterBuddy, people visited ChatGPT 1.5 billion times per month over the past year, for a total of 14.6 billion visits. That’s 60% of all visits to the top 50 AI tools, and that compares to just 242 million for Google’s Bard. Bard, of course, started later than ChatGPT and was initially only available in the United States, although it is now open to users in 230 countries across the planet.
Nearly 60% of visits are made on mobile, although OpenAI recently unveiled the ability to speak to ChatGPT in natural language in its application.
And of course, almost 70% of sessions using generative AI tools are carried out by men.
I asked AI why this might be the case, and one potential reason ChatGPT gave me for this disparity: a historically higher representation of men in the tech sector, which is likely to be the source of the most early adopters. When me too request On Twitter/X, on why this disparity might exist, one person cited the fact that historically, AI tools like Alexa, Siri, and Cortana have often had issues. female names, playing on cultural stereotypes that women help men. Modern generative AI tools of course have names like ChatGPT or Bard or Perplexity or MidJourney. So maybe this is changing.
Another perfectly valid reason cited by one woman: Maybe they just don’t want to.
“For AI to work, you have to think like it and carry out instructions the way it wants,” says author and artist Catherine Fitzpatrick. “Tiring.”
The first-mover advantage appears to have worked for OpenAI, which released the Dall-E image generator in 2021 and ChatGPT in November 2022. This has of course been supported by continued innovation, with the release of GPT-4 in March 2022. 2023 and user-customizable GPT in November this year.
Google’s Bard didn’t open early access until March 2023.
Together, Google’s Bard and other generative AI tools like Character.ai and Perplexity AI hold just 19% of total AI hits. Character.ai alone makes up almost 16%, but it’s a very different tool: essentially a conversational chatbot with various personalities rather than an AI that can actually be used to get work done.
Still, a rising tide lifts most boats and the top 50 AI tools have seen considerable growth. Despite a peak in visit growth in May 2023, with a slight decline in subsequent months, the top 50 tools still saw usage increase nearly 11 times over the course. from last year.
The reasons for the decline? The study cites regulation, economic exhaustion, changes in consumer preferences and a shift in traffic from web browsers (which are more trackable) to mobile apps.
Perhaps more confusing is the gender variance.
What is likely, over time, however, is that generative AI will cease to be a place where people go or a specific thing that people do, and will simply be a natural, always-available, integrated part of every software tool we use. This is certainly Microsoft’s vision with Copilot.
At this point, if not before, we will likely see a better balance between those who use and those who benefit from generative AI.