"One in Two People Use It"... Claude Rises Fast Amid ChatGPT's Dominance [IT Item of the Day]

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[Financial News] Generative AI is spreading at a breathtaking pace. Over the past year, monthly active users (MAU) of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude in South Korea have surged by as much as nearly 12 times. Generative AI is quickly moving beyond a tool for early adopters and becoming part of everyday life.
According to a survey released on the 20th by WiseApp Retail, ChatGPT is by far the most widely used generative AI service in South Korea. As of April, the ChatGPT app had 23.45 million monthly users in the country, a record high. That means roughly one in every two people in the nation uses ChatGPT. Gemini followed with 8.45 million users, while Claude had 2.41 million, Perplexity AI 1.65 million, Grok AI 1.51 million, A. 1.25 million and Wrtn 930,000. They were followed by Manus AI, Genspark AI Workspace, Microsoft Copilot and DeepSeek.
In terms of growth rate alone, Claude was the fastest-growing service over the past year. Its MAU jumped 1,148% from April last year, or about 12 times. Gemini also grew 1,034% over the same period, expanding more than tenfold. ChatGPT, already backed by a massive user base, continued to grow as well, rising 34%.
Industry observers say generative AI has now moved beyond the trial stage and into real-world use. In the past, it was closer to a service people tried once. More recently, however, AI use has spread across everyday life and work, including search, document writing, translation, coding and work assistance, rapidly broadening the user base.
User preferences also differed clearly by service. ChatGPT had a relatively higher share of female users, while Gemini and Claude had a larger share of male users. Claude in particular had the highest male user ratio at 62.1%.
By age group, ChatGPT had the highest share of users in their 40s, while Gemini and Claude had the largest share of users in their 20s. This suggests that generative AI use is becoming more segmented by generation and purpose.
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yjjoe@fnnews.com Jo Yoon-joo Reporter