ChatGPT usage hits record as Studio Ghibli-style AI images go viral

Active users, in-app subscription revenue and app downloads of ChatGPT reached an all-time high, according to external data

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Social media users worldwide are sharing images based on the hand-drawn style of the famed Japanese animation outfit, Studio Ghibli. Photo: X @JanuBuilds

Published: 10:45am, 2 Apr 2025

The frenzy to create Ghibli-style AI art using ChatGPT’s image-generation tool led to a record surge in users for OpenAI’s chatbot last week, straining its servers and temporarily limiting the feature’s usage.

The viral trend saw users from across the globe flood social media with images based on the hand-drawn style of the famed Japanese animation outfit, Studio Ghibli, founded by renowned director Hayao Miyazaki and known for films such as Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro.

Average weekly active users breached the 150 million mark for the first time this year, according to data from market research firm Similarweb.

“We added 1 million users in the last hour,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an X post on Monday, comparing it with the addition of 1 million users in five days following ChatGPT’s red-hot launch more than two years ago.

Active users, in-app subscription revenue and app downloads reached an all-time high last week, according to SensorTower data, after the AI company launched updates to its GPT-4o model, enabling advanced image generation capabilities.

Global app downloads and weekly active users on the ChatGPT app grew 11 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, from the prior week, while in-app purchase revenue increased 6 per cent, the market intelligence firm said.