Generative AI Users Worldwide: ChatGPT Reach and Adoption Rates

There is no single official count of generative AI users. Two types of evidence are available: company statements about individual products such as ChatGPT, and population-level estimates such as Microsoft's Global AI Diffusion Report.

Company figures count weekly users of one product. Microsoft's figure estimates the share of people aged 15-64 who used any generative AI product in a period [4][5]. The two measures are not directly comparable.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at DevDay in October 2025 that more than 800 million people use ChatGPT every week [1]. TechCrunch reported that this was up from 500 million weekly active users at the end of March 2025, and that OpenAI said in August 2025 it was close to 700 million [1].

In August 2025 OpenAI said daily user messages had passed three billion, with the weekly user figure covering free, Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Team and Edu products [2]. CNET later reported OpenAI's statement that ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly active users, more than 50 million consumer subscribers and 9 million business subscribers [3].

• More than 4 million developers have built with OpenAI (October 2025) [1].
• The OpenAI API processes over 6 billion tokens per minute (October 2025) [1].

Microsoft's Global AI Diffusion Report found that AI usage rose from 16.3% to 17.8% of the world's working-age population in the first quarter of 2026 [5]. In that quarter 26 economies had more than 30% of their working-age population using AI [5].

In the second quarter of 2026 the global share reached 18.8%, up roughly 1 percentage point from the first quarter [4]. The UAE (73.3%) and Singapore (64.3%) had the highest rates [4]. In the first quarter, the United States ranked 21st with a 31.3% usage rate [5].

Microsoft reports a widening gap between richer and poorer economies [4]. High-income, digitally connected economies such as the UAE and Singapore have usage rates more than three times the global average (freereports.online calculation: 73.3% and 64.3% against 18.8%) [4]. Microsoft attributed part of the Q1 2026 gains in Asia to better AI capabilities in Asian languages, with South Korea, Thailand and Japan moving most [5].

ChatGPT figures are OpenAI statements as reported by TechCrunch [1], CNBC [2] and CNET via Yahoo Finance [3]. Weekly active users count accounts or people using ChatGPT at least once in a week; they are not unique global internet users of all AI tools.

Microsoft measures AI diffusion as the share of people aged 15-64 who used a generative AI product during the period, based on anonymised Microsoft telemetry adjusted for device market share, internet penetration and population [4][5]. Microsoft said it will add more AI tools to the measure in its next report, which it expects to raise measured diffusion [4].

Survey sources such as Pew Research Center, OECD and McKinsey's State of AI were not reviewed for this edition and are not used. freereports.online calculation: the ratio comparison in Regional Gaps divides the UAE and Singapore rates by the global rate of 18.8% [4].