OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Monday that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users. This marks a significant increase in adoption among consumers, developers, enterprises, and governments.
The impressive growth of ChatGPT comes as OpenAI is racing to secure as many AI chips and build as much AI infrastructure as possible. In August, OpenAI stated it was on the cusp of reaching 700 million weekly active users. That figure was already an increase from the 500 million weekly active users reported at the end of March.
Altman shared that today, four million developers have built with OpenAI. He also noted that more than 800 million people use ChatGPT every week, and the company processes over six billion tokens per minute on its API. He stated that thanks to its users, AI has gone from something people play with to something people build with every day.
Altman made this announcement during the keynote presentation for OpenAI’s DevDay. The event also included announcements for new tools for building apps inside of ChatGPT, as well as for constructing more complex agentic systems. He said this will enable a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized, that you can chat with.
Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT saw unprecedented user growth almost immediately. It became both the preeminent consumer AI product and one of the fastest-growing online services ever. More recently the tool expanded into proactive services with OpenAI Pulse, which sends customized morning briefs to participating users.
The service has also been dogged by concerns about sycophancy and AI-induced delusions. This is particularly highlighted in the recent case of Allan Brooks, who was misled into believing he had made a novel mathematical discovery with ChatGPT’s help.
Still legally designated as a non-profit, OpenAI became the most valuable privately held company in the world on Thursday. A private stock sale of 6.6 billion dollars in shares valued the company at 500 billion dollars. The company has also been launching new products at a blistering pace. It released a new version of its video-generation tool Sora last week, paired with an accompanying social media network. That same week, the company partnered with Stripe to launch a platform for agentic commerce.