[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] SAN FRANCISCO, August 5 — OpenAI announced this week that the number of weekly active users (WAUs) for its flagship AI chatbot ChatGPT is projected to exceed 700 million, a remarkable milestone that reflects explosive global adoption. This figure represents a more than fourfold increase compared to the same period in 2024.
The surge in user activity underscores the growing reliance on generative AI tools across sectors including education, software development, marketing, customer support, and enterprise productivity. ChatGPT has been rapidly integrated into personal workflows as well as corporate IT infrastructures, with a growing number of companies adopting ChatGPT Enterprise and embedding OpenAI’s APIs into their services.
In its report on Monday, The New York Times estimated that, based on this momentum, OpenAI’s annual revenue is likely to exceed KRW 27.8 trillion (approximately USD 20 billion) by the end of 2025. The forecast reflects increased demand for premium subscriptions, widespread API usage via OpenAI’s platform and Microsoft Azure partnership, and expanding enterprise licensing deals.
OpenAI’s user base growth has accelerated following the release of GPT-4o earlier this year, which brought multimodal capabilities—enabling real-time reasoning across text, audio, and vision—into the hands of free and paid users. The rollout of native desktop and mobile apps, multilingual expansion, and broader access to AI assistants have further driven adoption.
A Global User Base with Diverse Use Cases
From students using ChatGPT to study and draft essays, to software engineers leveraging it for coding assistance, and businesses deploying AI to automate workflows, the chatbot has evolved into a widely used productivity tool.
“Generative AI is no longer a novelty—it’s becoming a fundamental layer in how people work, create, and communicate,” said an industry analyst. “The numbers we’re seeing with ChatGPT are on par with the most viral technology platforms in internet history.”
Looking Ahead
OpenAI continues to iterate rapidly, with upcoming features expected to further enhance user engagement and retention. These include memory capabilities, custom GPTs, and continued improvements in reasoning and safety.
Meanwhile, competition in the generative AI space is intensifying, with Google (Gemini), Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), and others also vying for market share. But for now, ChatGPT remains the clear leader in global usage metrics.
AlphaBIZ Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
