ChatGPT’s Growth Is Stalling, and That’s a Real Problem for OpenAI’s IPO Plans

ChatGPT had a hell of a run. For a while, it felt like everyone and their dog was downloading the app, asking it to write poems about toasters, and marveling at what AI could do. But the honeymoon phase is clearly over.

Sensor Tower dropped some numbers this week that paint a pretty sobering picture. In April, ChatGPT saw a 132 percent increase in uninstalls compared to the same month last year. That’s bad enough, but March was even worse — a staggering 413 percent year-over-year spike in people ditching the app.

What happened in February? OpenAI announced a deal with the Pentagon. I’m not saying that’s the sole cause, but the timing is awfully suspicious. A lot of users, especially the privacy-conscious crowd, probably looked at that and decided they’d rather switch to something else.

The growth numbers tell a similar story. ChatGPT’s monthly active users were up 168 percent in January. By April, that figure had dropped to 78 percent. Still impressive in absolute terms — the app has a massive user base — but the trajectory is unmistakable. The rocket ship is losing altitude.

Now, 78 percent growth is nothing to sneeze at. Most startups would kill for those numbers. But OpenAI isn’t a scrappy startup anymore. It’s a company with serious ambitions, including a rumored IPO down the line. Investors love growth, but they hate slowing growth even more. If you’re trying to sell shares to the public, showing that your flagship product is losing users faster than it’s gaining them is not the flex you want.

The obvious question is: where are those users going? Rival chatbots like Claude, Gemini, and a dozen open-source alternatives have been getting better fast. Some are free, some offer better privacy, some just don’t come with the baggage of a Pentagon contract. The market is no longer a one-horse race.

I don’t think ChatGPT is doomed by any stretch. The brand recognition alone buys it years of runway. But the narrative has shifted. It’s no longer “the AI that took over the world.” It’s “the AI that people are starting to uninstall.” That’s a harder story to sell to Wall Street.