The large image: In case you’re nonetheless doubtful in regards to the impression generative AI is having on the world, take into account this: Open AI CEO Sam Altman just lately advised that ChatGPT’s weekly lively customers have reached, or are very near, one billion folks. Altman stated that consumer numbers had doubled in just some weeks, thanks in no small half to the up to date picture technology function and the extremely well-liked Studio Ghibli imitations.
Talking onstage at TED on Friday, curator Chris Anderson requested Altman what number of customers ChatGPT had. “I feel the final time we stated was 500 million weekly actives, and it’s rising very quickly,” Altman stated.
“You informed me that it like doubled in just some weeks,” Anderson continued. “I stated that privately,” stated Altman. And whereas Anderson supplied to edit his remarks, Altman stated it was okay, repeating that consumer numbers have been rising very quick.
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Altman then revealed that “one thing like” 10% of the world makes use of OpenAI’s programs. With the worldwide inhabitants presently simply over 8 billion, that might equal 800 million customers.
Following its launch on November 30, 2022 as a free analysis preview primarily based on the GPT-3.5 mannequin, ChatGPT reached 100 million customers in two months. That made it the fastest-growing pc software in historical past. By comparability, it took TikTok 9 months to succeed in 100 million customers, whereas Instagram took two and half years to hit the identical determine.
By August 2024, ChatGPT’s weekly lively consumer numbers had hit 200 million.
A giant a part of ChatGPT’s current uptick in customers stems from OpenAI’s March 25 replace of the device’s picture generator, introducing new parts resembling higher picture dealing with.
The end result was social media being flooded with pictures and movies created in varied kinds, the preferred of which was that of Japanese animation firm Studio Ghibli.
The fad of producing these pictures turned so widespread and intense that it put an infinite pressure on OpenAI’s infrastructure. Altman stated the demand had been so excessive that it was “melting” the corporate’s GPUs. The excellent news for OpenAI was that the replace had attracted a million new ChatGPT customers in a single hour.
the chatgpt launch 26 months in the past was one of many craziest viral moments i might ever seen, and we added a million customers in 5 days.
we added a million customers within the final hour.
– Sam Altman (@sama) March 31, 2025
In response to new knowledge from Appfigures, ChatGPT was the world’s most downloaded app in March, excluding video games, as installs elevated 28% from February to succeed in 46 million new downloads final month. Whereas OpenAI has the improved picture generator to thank for the uptick, the elimination of some safeguards on picture technology, permitting the creation of pictures depicting public figures, hateful symbols, and racial options, in all probability helped, too.
Whereas customers proceed to embrace generative AI, its widespread use raises questions in regards to the expertise’s function within the office. Extra firms are reducing workers, usually attributable to their job duties being diminished or erased by the likes of AI brokers.
When requested for his views on AI changing people, Altman stated, “You possibly can say, oh, man, it is doing all the pieces I do, what is going on to occur to me? Or you’ll be able to say, like, by means of each different technological revolution in historical past, okay, now there’s this new device. I can do much more. What am I going to have the ability to do? It’s true that the expectation of what we’ll have for somebody in a specific job will increase, however the capabilities will improve so dramatically that I feel it will be simple to rise to the event.”
