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

ChatGPT had a hell of a run. But the numbers coming out now suggest the honeymoon might be ending.

Sensor Tower dropped some sobering data this week. ChatGPT’s uninstalls jumped 132 percent year-over-year in April. That’s bad enough on its own, but March was even worse — a staggering 413 percent increase year-over-year. That spike lines up pretty neatly with OpenAI’s Pentagon deal in February, which I suspect rubbed a lot of users the wrong way.

Monthly active user growth is also cooling off fast. January saw a 168 percent increase. By April, that number had dropped to 78 percent. Still positive, sure, but the trajectory is unmistakable. When your growth rate halves in three months, something is shifting.

ChatGPT still has a massive user base — we’re not talking about a dead app here. But the trend lines matter. Investors love growth stories, and OpenAI is reportedly eyeing an IPO down the road. Slowing adoption and rising churn are exactly the kind of metrics that make underwriters nervous.

The Pentagon deal is probably part of it. Some users genuinely don’t want their AI assistant tied to military contracts. But I think there’s more going on. The novelty has worn off. People have tried ChatGPT, found it useful for certain tasks, and then realized they don’t need it in their daily life. Or they’ve switched to something else — Claude, Gemini, or even just going back to Google search.

OpenAI’s response has been to add more features, more capabilities, more everything. But that doesn’t address the core issue: ChatGPT was a phenomenon, not a utility. And phenomena fade.

I don’t think this kills the IPO. But it makes the story harder to sell. “We had explosive growth” is a great pitch. “We still have a lot of users” is less compelling.

What’s interesting to me is that this mirrors what happened with a lot of the early mobile app darlings. Fast growth, then a plateau, then a slow decline unless you pivot hard. OpenAI has the resources to pivot — they’re not going under. But the era of effortless, exponential growth is probably over.

If I were advising them, I’d be looking hard at retention, not just acquisition. Getting people to download is one thing. Getting them to stay is another entirely. And right now, the data says a lot of them aren’t sticking around.