AI
Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools
This visual is part of our 2024 Global Forecast Series. For full access to the series, learn more here.
Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools of 2023
Artificial intelligence had its breakout year in 2023, with large language models (LLMs) and text-to-image generators capturing the attention and imagination of technologists and investors alike.
Similar to other recent breakthrough technologies like the internet and the smartphone, the early stage of AI’s tech adoption cycle has already seen the creation of highly-used software products.
This visualization from our 2024 Global Forecast Series report uses data from Writerbuddy and Coatue to rank and visualize the most popular AI tools of 2023 along with key recent tech adoption cycles and the software products that defined them.
The Most Visited Artificial Intelligence Websites of 2023
Not surprisingly, ChatGPT, OpenAI’s product that sparked the artificial intelligence boom in late 2022, emerged as the most popular AI tool of 2023.
ChatGPT dominated the industry’s web visits with more than 60% of visits from September 2022 to August 2023, racking up 14.6 billion visits to their website.
Following ChatGPT is another chatbot, Character.AI, which rather than being a singular LLM for general and productivity-related user queries is a collection of characters (also known as “dialog agents”) that users can freely converse with. These range from popular characters from TV shows and video games to dating coaches and interactive strategy and text-based games.
| AI Tool | Total Web Visits (Sept 2022 to Aug 2023) | Share of Industry Total |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 14.6B | 60.2% |
| Character.AI | 3.8B | 15.8% |
| QuillBot | 1.1B | 4.7% |
| Midjourney | 500.4M | 2.1% |
| Hugging Face | 316.6M | 1.3% |
| Google Bard | 241.6M | 1.0% |
| NovelAI | 238.7M | 1.0% |
| CapCut | 203.8M | 0.8% |
| JanitorAI | 192.4M | 0.8% |
| CivitAI | 177.2M | 0.7% |
Another writing tool, QuillBot, rounds out the top three most popular AI web products of 2023, with these top three collectively accounting for more than 80% of visits to AI product websites.
Besides LLMs, leading AI image generator Midjourney was the fourth-most popular AI tool in 2023 and is followed by Hugging Face, an open source community which features hundreds of unique AI models that include LLMs, image generators, and other freely accessible AI tools.
Software Creation in Tech Adoption Cycles
Despite still being in the early stages of its adoption, artificial intelligence has already produced tools that have garnered billions of visits and thousands of paying users for premium versions of AI products.
The launch and propagation of software products is a key driver for the user adoption of breakthrough technologies. Apps like Uber and Airbnb helped define the utility of smartphones as a technology, similar to what early websites like Google, Amazon, and YouTube did for the internet.
While this first wave of AI tools is already beyond what the world could’ve imagined even just a couple of years ago, as the public adoption of AI continues we’ll only see more powerful and unique AI tools and products.
Technology
Mapped: The Number of AI Startups By Country
Over the past decade, thousands of AI startups have been funded worldwide. See which countries are leading the charge in this map graphic.
Mapped: The Number of AI Startups By Country
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Amidst the recent expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), we’ve visualized data from Quid (accessed via Stanford’s 2024 AI Index Report) to highlight the top 15 countries which have seen the most AI startup activity over the past decade.
The figures in this graphic represent the number of newly funded AI startups within that country, in the time period of 2013 to 2023. Only companies that received over $1.5 million in private investment were considered.
Data and Highlights
The following table lists all of the numbers featured in the above graphic.
| Rank | Geographic area | Number of newly funded AI startups (2013-2023) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇺🇸 United States | 5,509 |
| 2 | 🇨🇳 China | 1,446 |
| 3 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 727 |
| 4 | 🇮🇱 Israel | 442 |
| 5 | 🇨🇦 Canada | 397 |
| 6 | 🇫🇷 France | 391 |
| 7 | 🇮🇳 India | 338 |
| 8 | 🇯🇵 Japan | 333 |
| 9 | 🇩🇪 Germany | 319 |
| 10 | 🇸🇬 Singapore | 193 |
| 11 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | 189 |
| 12 | 🇦🇺 Australia | 147 |
| 13 | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | 123 |
| 14 | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 94 |
| 15 | 🇪🇸 Spain | 94 |
From this data, we can see that the U.S., China, and UK have established themselves as major hotbeds for AI innovation.
In terms of funding, the U.S. is massively ahead, with private AI investment totaling $335 billion between 2013 to 2023. AI startups in China raised $104 billion over the same timeframe, while those in the UK raised $22 billion.
Further analysis reveals that the U.S. is widening this gap even more. In 2023, for example, private investment in the U.S. grew by 22% from 2022 levels. Meanwhile, investment fell in China (-44%) and the UK (-14.1%) over the same time span.
Where is All This Money Flowing To?
Quid also breaks down total private AI investment by focus area, providing insight into which sectors are receiving the most funding.
| Focus Area | Global Investment in 2023 (USD billions) |
|---|---|
| 🤖 AI infrastructure, research, and governance | $18.3 |
| 🗣️ Natural language processing | $8.1 |
| 📊 Data management | $5.5 |
| ⚕️ Healthcare | $4.2 |
| 🚗 Autonomous vehicles | $2.7 |
| 💰 Fintech | $2.1 |
| ⚛️ Quantum computing | $2.0 |
| 🔌 Semiconductor | $1.7 |
| ⚡ Energy, oil, and gas | $1.5 |
| 🎨 Creative content | $1.3 |
| 📚 Education | $1.2 |
| 📈 Marketing | $1.1 |
| 🛸 Drones | $1.0 |
| 🔒 Cybersecurity | $0.9 |
| 🏭 Manufacturing | $0.9 |
| 🛒 Retail | $0.7 |
| 🕶️ AR/VR | $0.7 |
| 🛡️ Insurtech | $0.6 |
| 🎬 Entertainment | $0.5 |
| 💼 VC | $0.5 |
| 🌾 Agritech | $0.5 |
| ⚖️ Legal tech | $0.4 |
| 👤 Facial recognition | $0.3 |
| 🌐 Geospatial | $0.2 |
| 💪 Fitness and wellness | $0.2 |
Attracting the most money is AI infrastructure, research, and governance, which refers to startups that are building AI applications (like OpenAI’s ChatGPT).
The second biggest focus area is natural language processing (NLP), which is a type of AI that enables computers to understand and interpret human language. This technology has numerous use cases for businesses, particularly in financial services, where NLP can power customer support chatbots and automated wealth advisors.
With $8 billion invested into NLP-focused startups during 2023, investors appear keenly aware of this technology’s transformative potential.
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