ChatGPT Surpasses X in Monthly Traffic Amid Ghibli-Style Image Craze

In a remarkable shift in digital dominance, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has overtaken Elon Musk’s X in monthly website traffic, fueled by a viral trend involving Studio Ghibli-style AI-generated images. According to Similarweb data, ChatGPT recorded 4.786 billion visits over the last 28 days of April 2025, surpassing X’s 4.028 billion visits, marking a historic milestone in the AI and social media landscape.

The buzz started when OpenAI added a cool new feature to its GPT-4o model in March 2025. It lets people turn their photos into dreamy, Ghibli-style artwork, like something from Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro. The internet went wild, with everyone from regular users to big names like Elon Musk and Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath sharing their Ghibli-fied pictures. Musk even posted a funny one of himself as a monkey holding the DOGE mascot, giving a nod to his crypto obsession.

ChatGPT’s been pulling ahead of X since March, especially on weekdays when it’s a go-to tool for work. Posts on X show it hitting nearly 200 million daily visits, though it drops to about 130 million on weekends. April was when it really took the lead, and this image trend sealed the deal.

Not everyone’s thrilled, though. Some worry OpenAI might use uploaded photos to train its AI, raising privacy red flags. Studio Ghibli fans, including co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, aren’t happy either. Miyazaki once called AI art an “insult to life,” and fans are upset about possible copyright issues. OpenAI is also dealing with lawsuits over using copyrighted material without permission, which adds to the drama.

On the other side, X, now part of Musk’s X AI Holdings, is fighting back by adding AI features like Grok to make its feeds better. But for now, ChatGPT’s creativity and viral appeal are winning the day. With rumors that OpenAI might launch its own social media platform, the battle with X is only going to heat up, changing how we connect online.