ChatGPT is currently a popular AI application. It may even be considered the most used AI application throughout history by many tens of millions of weekly users. However, according to a wide range of media outlets, it has become increasingly clear that ChatGPT is seeing a substantial decline in its number of active users, due to a number of factors such as; ethical issues around how AI is used, the growing number of competing solutions, changing customer preferences and the ongoing cultural debate regarding the role that AI will serve in our society.
There are multiple reasons, which are already causing current ChatGPT customers to cancel their subscriptions.
1. Military Controversy
Many believe that the agreement between OpenAI and the U.S. Department of Defense has contributed in at least some way to the growing number of customers that will no longer use ChatGPT in 2026. There is a significant ethical concern with allowing the U.S. government to use ChatGPT in classified environments at all.
Within a time frame of 1-2 days following the announcement, media reports indicated approximately 1.5 million subscribers had stopped using the app. Additionally, there has been a simultaneous rise in multiple boycott-type initiatives, collecting millions of backers for the premise that AI-assisted technology, such as ChatGPT, can be used by many countries for military applications.
Critics of AI being used as possible military rapidly point to many of the potential uses of PC-based AI technology, such as establishing a basis of warfare, surveillance, and making government decisions about how to wage war. Although OpenAI officials have publicly stated that ChatGPT will not be used in the operation of or controls over autonomous weapons systems or for nation-scale government surveillance, many activists and technology experts continue to be sceptical of these claims.
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2. Growing Competition From Rival AI Chatbots
Protests against the militaryisation of AI have led to increased online activities to delete the application. There appears to be a trend of users migrating to other AI platforms due to the increase of AI-assistant platforms that have recently come onto the market, with each AI platform offering unique features and policy implementations to garner new users, including Claude, Google Gemini, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, and other forms of AI-assistants.
After the Pentagon scandal, ChatGPT’s chatbot application became the number one app on Apple’s U.S. Store as users switched to different platforms out of either defiance or curiosity.
As a result of this marketplace trend, it is evident that ChatGPT’s current lead over its competitors in the artificial intelligence assistant chatbot market is rapidly disappearing; at the same time, its competitors (e.g., Google’s Gemini) have experienced significant growth in their user bases, while the marketshare for all three of these leading chatbot applications has decreased substantially during the past year. Currently the three leading AI assistant applications are:
- Claude from Anthropic
- Google Gemini from Google
- Grok (formerly Knack) from OpenAI
Read also: ChatGPT 5.1 has a New competitor
3. Ethical Boycotts and Political Boycotts
Many users are switching between various AIs simply due to the fact that these platforms continue to offer nearly identical capabilities, such as assistance with writing, coding, and research.
Finally, when looking at the social movement activity to boycott ChatGPT, there have been examples of some activists who have expanded their efforts to urge consumers to end their relationship with ChatGPT not only based on military issues but also on ethical and/or political grounds. Activist movements like “QuitGPT” encourage consumers to discontinue using ChatGPT and instead use other AI assistant programs as a way to send a message to large technology companies.
