ChatGPT and Gemini both just passed 1 billion users
ChatGPT and Gemini both just passed 1 billion users
ChatGPT 和 Gemini 的用户数均已突破 10 亿
OpenAI’s still the chatbot leader, but the race appears to be tightening fast. OpenAI 依然是聊天机器人领域的领头羊，但竞争似乎正在迅速加剧。
For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X that a billion people are using Gemini every month, and that Gemini is Google’s fastest-growing product ever. 这是 Google 旗下产品第 14 次达到 10 亿用户大关。Google 首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊（Sundar Pichai）在 X 上发文称，每月有 10 亿人正在使用 Gemini，且 Gemini 是 Google 史上增长最快的产品。
A billion users is a huge milestone, but Google isn’t the first AI app to hit it. OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit the mark a few weeks ago, though the company buried the announcement that “more than 1 billion people are putting ChatGPT to work” in an otherwise anodyne blog post about how people use AI. External data suggested ChatGPT crossed 1 billion users as early as this June, but OpenAI hadn’t announced anything until that post on August 6th. OpenAI spokesperson Lindsay McCallum says ChatGPT crossed 1 billion monthly users some time ago, and hit a billion a week in July. 10 亿用户是一个巨大的里程碑，但 Google 并非首个达到这一目标的 AI 应用。OpenAI 的 ChatGPT 在几周前就已达成此成就，尽管该公司在一篇关于人们如何使用 AI 的平淡博文中，才顺带提及了“超过 10 亿人正在使用 ChatGPT”这一消息。外部数据显示，ChatGPT 早在今年 6 月就已突破 10 亿用户，但 OpenAI 直到 8 月 6 日才发布相关公告。OpenAI 发言人琳赛·麦卡勒姆（Lindsay McCallum）表示，ChatGPT 的月活跃用户数在一段时间前就已突破 10 亿，并在 7 月达到了周活跃用户 10 亿的规模。
The metrics, and the growth they represent, are somewhat complicated here. OpenAI said that ChatGPT had 900 million weekly active users in February of this year, and reaching 1 billion five months later represents a significant slowdown in growth for ChatGPT, which was for years touted as the fastest-growing software ever. McCallum declined to say how many monthly users ChatGPT has. 这里的指标及其所代表的增长情况有些复杂。OpenAI 曾表示，ChatGPT 在今年 2 月拥有 9 亿周活跃用户，五个月后达到 10 亿，这意味着 ChatGPT 的增长速度显著放缓——要知道，多年来它一直被誉为史上增长最快的软件。麦卡勒姆拒绝透露 ChatGPT 目前的月活跃用户具体数字。
Google, meanwhile, announced in February that Gemini had 750 million monthly users, before reporting 950 million in late July on its earnings call, and Google spokesperson Alex Joseph says it reached 1 billion last week before announcing it today. (Claude appears to be growing fast, but Anthropic doesn’t disclose its user data, and estimates put its user numbers in the tens of millions.) There’s no easy way to compare weekly and monthly users, of course, but the simplest read is that ChatGPT is the larger of the platforms but Gemini may be the faster growing. 与此同时，Google 在 2 月宣布 Gemini 拥有 7.5 亿月活跃用户，随后在 7 月下旬的财报电话会议上报告该数字已达 9.5 亿。Google 发言人亚历克斯·约瑟夫（Alex Joseph）表示，Gemini 在上周达到了 10 亿用户，并于今日正式宣布。（Claude 的增长似乎也很快，但 Anthropic 并未披露其用户数据，据估计其用户数在数千万量级。）当然，周活跃用户和月活跃用户之间很难直接比较，但最简单的解读是：ChatGPT 目前规模更大，但 Gemini 的增长速度可能更快。
These Google numbers, by the way, all appear to refer directly to the Gemini app itself, which would mean all the places Google has shoved Gemini into its other products don’t count. The Gemini that comes preinstalled on Android phones seemingly does, though, which is a huge win for Google — Gemini chief Josh Woodward posted that Gemini has more than 100 million active users on iOS, which would mean by extension that the vast majority of Gemini users are also Android users. You can see why OpenAI is so interested in building its own hardware. 顺便提一下，Google 的这些数据似乎都直接指向 Gemini 应用本身，这意味着 Google 将 Gemini 植入其其他产品中的部分并未计入其中。不过，预装在 Android 手机上的 Gemini 似乎被计算在内了，这对 Google 来说是一场巨大的胜利——Gemini 负责人乔什·伍德沃德（Josh Woodward）发文称，Gemini 在 iOS 上拥有超过 1 亿活跃用户，这意味着绝大多数 Gemini 用户实际上是 Android 用户。你现在应该明白为什么 OpenAI 对打造自己的硬件如此感兴趣了。
The AI race in general has tightened significantly this year. Anthropic’s Claude Code became a phenomenon and forced OpenAI to catch up with Codex, while Google began integrating Gemini into seemingly every surface of its products. The companies’ models have consistently leapfrogged each other, and they’re all suddenly in a race with models coming out of China. But for a long time, ChatGPT was the de facto brand for AI chatbots, and while it’s still seemingly the most popular and well known of its kind, its once commanding lead appears to have largely evaporated. The race to a billion users is over — now these companies have to race to find things for those users to do, and ways to make money in the process. 总体而言，今年的 AI 竞赛显著加剧。Anthropic 的 Claude Code 成为了一种现象级产品，迫使 OpenAI 加紧追赶 Codex；与此同时，Google 开始将 Gemini 集成到其产品的各个角落。各家公司的模型不断交替领先，且突然间还要与来自中国的模型展开竞争。长期以来，ChatGPT 一直是 AI 聊天机器人的代名词，虽然它似乎仍是同类产品中最受欢迎、最广为人知的一个，但它曾经的绝对领先优势似乎已基本消失。通往 10 亿用户的竞赛已经结束——现在，这些公司必须竞相寻找让用户参与其中的方式，并在此过程中探索盈利之道。