OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, announced the acquisition of Global Illumination, a New York-based startup leveraging AI to build creative tools, infrastructure and digital experiences.

Global Illumination is led by the  trio of Thomas Dimson, Taylor Gordon, and Joey Flynn and the entire team has joined OpenAI to work on OpenAI’s core products including ChatGPT. 

Supported by venture capital firms Paradigm, Benchmark, and Slow, the team at Global Illumination boasts a track record of creating and developing products in the early stages of companies like Instagram and Facebook. Additionally, they have played pivotal roles in driving progress at renowned entities such as YouTube, Google, Pixar, Riot Games, and other noteworthy organizations.

“We’re very excited for the impact they’ll have here at OpenAI” said OpenAI in the blog post. The latest project from Global Illumination is Biomes, an open-source sandbox MMORPG reminiscent of Minecraft, designed to run directly on the web.

The acquisition comes at a time when recent trends in the user base of ChatGPT have raised interesting observations. In June, a dip in user engagement was noted compared to the previous month, May. Analysts attributed this decrease to the possibility of students being out of school during this time, leading to a shift in user patterns.

This trend continued into July, with a further reduction in the ChatGPT user base. Data from SimilarWeb revealed that July witnessed a 12% month-on-month decline, with the user count dropping from 1.7 billion in June to 1.5 billion users.

Moreover, ChatGPT finds itself in a competitive landscape with strong contenders like Bard and Claude 2. Notably, Google Brain and DeepMind have teamed up to develop Gemini, a venture that could potentially pose challenges for OpenAI’s dominance in the field. On a different front, Elon Musk is showing strong confidence in challenging OpenAI’s supremacy, as he sets his sights on creating a rival chatbot solution.

The acquisition of Global Illumination comes at a crucial time for OpenAI as they sought to bounce back and add new features to ChatGPT.