It took just two months from its introduction in November 2022 for the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot ChatGPT to reach 100 million monthly active users—the fastest growth of a consumer application in history.

Chatbots like ChatGPT are Large Language Models (LLMs), a type of artificial intelligence known as “generative AI.” Generative AI refers to algorithms that, after training on massive amounts of input data, can create new outputs, be they text, audio, images or video. The same technology fuels applications like Midjourney and DALL-E 2 that produce synthetic digital imagery, including “deepfakes.”