OpenAI Has an Sudden Challenger: Dave’s Scorching Hen

Whereas the tech and finance world continues to debate whether or not we’re in an AI bubble, one factor is for positive: Folks love AI!

For proof, like no additional than Apple’s App Retailer, the place OpenAI’s ChatGPT app and its Sora video spinoff are atop the “free app” rankings, and …

Whoops? So perhaps we love AI, however we love fried rooster extra?

Reply: We love — or are a minimum of concerned about — each issues. However the purpose Dave’s Scorching Hen is at the moment on the high of App Retailer rankings — above Sora and ChatGPT — is admittedly easy: This week, the quick meals chain, which counted Drake as an early investor, gave away free sandwiches to anybody who used the app to order the sandwiches.

Cue a lot of downloads, a lot of press protection, and humorous scenes like this.

I am not personally an enormous Dave’s fan. However a minimum of certainly one of my youngsters loves it, so I have been spending some huge cash on the recent rooster chain. I am not saying that is the rationale the corporate was offered in a deal that valued it at $1 billion earlier this yr. But it surely did not damage?

However this isn’t a narrative about my discretionary spending. It is actually a narrative about how Apple’s App Retailer rankings work. As a result of whereas it is cheap to assume that the rankings are measuring sheer recognition, that is not the case: They’re typically measuring current velocity of downloads. (Apple would not disclose its system publicly, however builders have been making knowledgeable guesses about this for a while.)

So a sizzling new app that is getting a flurry of downloads will rocket to the highest — however that does not imply it will keep there.

When you see a high app keep on the high of the app rankings over an prolonged time period — like ChatGPT has — then you definately’re probably seeing an app that has a variety of new downloads and a variety of general downloads. That may be a actually well-liked app.

But it surely additionally means you need to train warning when a buzzy new app comes out and rockets to the highest of the charts, as Sora has completed in current weeks.

Perhaps that signifies that a lot of individuals are utilizing Sora on a regular basis. But it surely might additionally imply that lots of people are listening to about Sora — which continues to be technically restricted to customers who’ve invitations — and are checking it out.

Whether or not they’re sticking round is one other matter, and we can’t learn about that for some time.