The popular IT forum Stack Overflow has lost a significant number of monthly questions after the launch of the ChatGPT chatbot and the emergence of other AI models. This threatens the very existence of the platform.
The popular IT forum Stack Overflow has lost a significant number of monthly questions after the launch of the ChatGPT chatbot and the emergence of other AI models. This threatens the very existence of the platform.
PPC Land notes that monthly query volume fell from a peak of over 200,000 in 2014 to less than 50,000 by the end of 2025.
A visualization of this data, posted by developer Sam Rose on X (Twitter), shows a dramatic trajectory in Stack Overflow question volume. The graph shows that monthly question volume has been steadily increasing since the site launched in 2008, peaking between 2014 and 2020, but then began a significant decline. By the end of 2025, question volume had returned to 2008 levels, marking the complete disappearance of 15 years of growth.
Activity on the platform declined after 2014 due to changes in moderation policies that made the community less welcoming to newcomers. However, the advent of AI tools has significantly accelerated the decline in the service’s audience.
Earlier, The Economist published a study that noted that because AI-powered search engines eliminate the need for people to search the Internet for answer sites, they stop the flow of traffic to these pages, and therefore reduce their profits.
Examples included Stack Overflow, whose traffic more than halved, and Reddit, whose shares fell by almost half in early 2025 due to concerns about declining search engine traffic.
