What happens when a beloved anime style collides with AI? It sparks a frenzy. The internet fell in love with ChatGPT’s ability to generate Ghibli-style images. What started as a handful of pictures turned into a full-blown viral trend. Almost everyone wanted to generate their pictures into Ghibli-style animation. Despite the criticism over ethics and plagiarism, ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman announced a major milestone.
ChatGPT registers 1 million users thanks to Studio Ghibli
OpenAI’s CEO confirmed that ChatGPT had crossed the one-million-user mark. Sam Altman tweeted, “the chatgpt launch 26 months ago was one of the craziest viral moments i’d ever seen, and we added one million users in five days. we added one million users in the last hour.” He also shared that ChatGPT’s image generation is now free for all.
the chatgpt launch 26 months ago was one of the craziest viral moments i’d ever seen, and we added one million users in five days.
we added one million users in the last hour.
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 31, 2025
This Ghibli-style animation has also received widespread backlash. Studio Ghibli’s founder, Hayao Miyazaki, has always been against AI. Many believe that artists have spent hours practising and perfecting the Ghibli-style art, which was originally hand-drawn, and it’s not fair to them.