Goldman Sachs searching for the demise of AI in all the wrong places

Goldman Sachs has been one of the more vocal AI skeptics, publishing a research piece in July of this year titled “GenAI Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?” - a well thought out piece we shared with our readers. 

Last week Goldman’s Chief Global Equity Strategist & Head of Macro Research Peter Oppenheimer doubled down, publishing a note with a “shocking” conclusion that web traffic to ChatGPT has dropped precipitously!

"Furthermore, the original 'excitement' about chat-GPT is fading in terms of monthly users (Exhibit 11). This does not mean, of course, that the growth rates in the industry will not be strong, but it does suggest that the next wave of beneficiaries may come from the new products and services that can be created on the back of these foundation models."

Not. So. Fast. Try a different URL.

A quick look at the underlying data reveals a rather simple mistake - the URL changed. When looking at the data the team looked at the older chat.openai.com forgetting the now ubiquitous chatgpt.com 

A quick look at Google Trends paints a similar picture

Traffic has not dropped off - but has actually been steadily growing.

Yet another reminder that even esteemed organizations such as GS can fall into the confirmation bias trap and that if you’re presented with data that seems too good to be true, it probably is.