알파경제 - ChatGPT’s Popularity Soars with ＂Ghibli Style＂ Meme, Reaching 1.25 Million Daily Active Users

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s X Profile Picture in ‘Ghibli Style’

[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] The meme trend of transforming existing photos into the style of Japan’s animation studio, Studio Ghibli, using ChatGPT has led to a surge in daily active users in South Korea, surpassing 1.2 million for the first time.


According to data from the mobile index of data platform company IGAWorks, the number of daily active users (DAU) of ChatGPT in South Korea reached an all-time high of 1,252,925 as of March 27.


Just two weeks earlier, on March 10, ChatGPT’s DAU was 1,033,733, marking the first time it surpassed 1 million. As of March 1, the DAU was only 799,571.


This rapid growth is believed to be linked to the release of OpenAI’s new image generation model, "ChatGPT-4o Image Generation," launched on March 25. The model is a combination of OpenAI’s multimodal AI model, "ChatGPT-4o," and an image generation tool that can create images based on user intent without requiring specific commands. Following the model’s release, global ChatGPT users began creating and sharing images in popular animation styles, such as those from Disney, on social media, sparking widespread attention.


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also caught attention by posting his X profile picture in the Ghibli art style. However, concerns have been raised about potential copyright infringement, as OpenAI is reportedly using the style of specific content like Ghibli’s works without paying licensing fees.

알파경제 Kim Jisun (stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)