ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in two months, outpacing TikTok’s nine-month and Instagram’s 30-month timelines to the same threshold

The consumer apps that are “working” in AI are growing so quickly and become so dominant that they’re no longer perceived as startups

It’s easy to forget that three years ago, no one was using these products!

@venturetwins it's hard to say these are "consumer" apps since big companies are behind them and have massive marketing budgets

indie ai apps for the consumer is still far behind and solving the retention thing is still a challenge (even for the big corps)

@venturetwins Eh, but that’s like saying Google was the biggest consumer app. Don’t you remember how many amazing consumer apps came out after the internet? Not the same

@venturetwins AI is genuinely useful already but the overhyping is kinda destroying its reputation. If we’re supposed to see ‘AGI in the next few years’ you would except the models to be much smarter already and the jumps between releases much bigger

@getintelo @venturetwins But the llms are general use. Any app that comes out can likely be done on an llm but with slightly more friction.

@venturetwins true but it’s also the first consumer app to pay like $5,000/mo per user in token subsidies

@venturetwins By consumer app, they mean app created using AI / vibe coding

the apps dominating the App Store AI chart are mostly wrappers around the same three APIs with different icons, that's not a consumer AI ecosystem. that's one product with a distribution layer built on top of it. the successful consumer app era hasn't arrived yet, what we have is a successful API era with a consumer facing skin

@venturetwins you gotta update your apps, Justine

@yvesai0 @venturetwins The 3 main Cht LLMs have around a billion user's, double the amount of Twitter user's. Most people have no clue what AI can do already beside chat and search. Otherwise AI slop and the bubble bursting would not be such a hot topic.

Aren’t models the infrastructure layer that enables consumer apps? Sure, they’ll provide generic services out of the box, but the future is more likely consumer product innovation built on top of these models. Or are you implying that the big model makers are going to subsume all consumer apps?

@venturetwins A new mass market platform needs either new media, or new consumers.

Web1 and web2 have basically saturated human attention.

Humanity's basically already online, but new agents are coming online faster than humans are being born. We're <5 years out from a real Moltbook.

@venturetwins @venturetwins I think the context here is those AI coder folks making software.

Your image of the App store shows the AI, but he's talking about the outputs.

@venturetwins chatgpt hit 100M users but also had the biggest headstart in free press of any app ever

@venturetwins It seems like they may be referring to downstream effects of AI in software development (e.g. proliferation of novel apps), not apps that for directly interacting w/ AI. Which is an interesting thing to try to quantify imo.

@venturetwins Which startup has become popular by building apps only using AI and without a team of engineers?

@venturetwins ChatGPT is literally a staple in most people's phones now haha.

@venturetwins these are excluded and that's unsaid i think when you say ai consumer apps are not successful

@venturetwins Justine it’s time to update your apps 😭

I read his comments and I think they're making both points - (1) there aren't big consumer AI outcomes, and (2) there aren't big consumer apps built with AI.

#2 is actually even more confusing to me because we actually have no idea how many recent popular apps were partially or largely built with AI.

I suspect it's the majority...