OpenAI has released its first major public study on ChatGPT’s users, offering a rare look into how people are engaging with the AI. The research is based on anonymised data from 1.5 million users between May 2024 and June 2025 and highlights a global audience of nearly 700 million weekly users.
What began as a tech novelty has quickly become part of daily routines, with ChatGPT now shaping how people learn, search and communicate. The study shows that most conversations revolve around practical guidance, information-seeking and writing support, while also raising ethical concerns about privacy, accuracy and AI’s role in personal lives.
A key finding is ChatGPT’s strong appeal among younger generations, with nearly half of all conversations coming from users aged 18 to 25. For the first time, more users had traditionally feminine names at 52 per cent, compared to 80 per cent masculine representation in 2023, signalling wider cultural adoption and a more balanced user base.
Practical guidance, ranging from fitness tips and academic help to everyday advice, accounts for 28.3 per cent of all conversations. However, personal queries and intimate questions have grown sharply. By June 2025, 73 per cent of chats were personal rather than work-related, covering relationship advice, lifestyle suggestions and self-improvement. Writing assistance such as editing, emails and personal communication also continues to be a significant use case.
Programming and AI-related coding, once central to the chatbot’s early adoption, now make up just 4.2 per cent of interactions, showing ChatGPT’s move beyond a niche tool into mainstream use.
Information-seeking has also surged, rivaling practical guidance as a leading category. Many of these queries mirror searches that would once have been directed to Google, signalling a possible disruption to the search industry and its advertising-driven business model.
The study also highlights smaller but growing areas such as ecommerce product queries and companionship, which account for 1.9 per cent of chats. OpenAI is developing parental controls to support safe adoption in households.
Despite its rapid integration, challenges remain. ChatGPT still produces errors known as hallucinations, prompting OpenAI to work on confidence thresholds and clearer warnings. Privacy safeguards are being prioritised, with AI-based content checks conducted without human review of individual conversations.
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