ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, setting a record for the fastest user growth when it launched reaching 100 million users in two months. The implications of this tool are far-reaching, with universities around the world scrambling to find a way to detect ChatGPT use in submitted essays, and tech giants rerouting entire teams to focus on commercializing their own AI efforts.
For those unaware, ChatGPT is a chatbot launched by OpenAI, a research laboratory founded by some of the biggest names in tech such as Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman. It has created a lot of press due to its breadth of capabilities, from answering questions and following up on secondary queries, to writing essays, to being a coding buddy.
ChatGPT is built on-top of OpenAI’s GPT large language model, which is still considered the most sophisticated model available for general use. It is also a foundational model, as it is the framework for all three of OpenAI’s consumer AI apps: ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex.
Even though ChatGPT is far from a complete product, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying on Twitter that it is “incredibly limited” and “a mistake to rely on it for anything important”, many have used it as a tool to automate emails, essays, and a few news sites have even used the tool to write content for them (Business of Apps is not one of those).
Demand for ChatGPT has been far greater than OpenAI expected, and way more than DALL-E received when it was launched to the public. To monetize that demand, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month, which provides subscribers with access to ChatGPT even at peak times, faster response time, and priority access to new features.
Running an AI chatbot at this scale is not cheap, with some estimating the cost to be over $15 million per month for OpenAI. This may be partly why the company has allied itself with Microsoft, which alongside investing over $10 billion in the company also gives either preferential rates or free access to Microsoft Azure’s cloud servers.
In return, Microsoft has embedded ChatGPT into a lot of its services, including Azure, which has an OpenAI service that includes integrations with GPT, ChatGPT, DALLE and Codex. Microsoft also launched a new version of its Bing search engine in 2023 with ChatGPT included.
The hope, at least for Microsoft, is that ChatGPT is the next version of search. Microsoft, alongside Amazon, Apple, and Google, all perceived the next step in search to be voice assistants, but these services have not taken over in the way some expected in the mid-2010s. Microsoft has all but abandoned Cortana, its own voice assistant.
We have collected data and statistics on ChatGPT. Read on below to find out more. Want to dig deeper? Check out our AI app report.
ChatGPT Key StatisticsÂ
- ChatGPT set a record as the fastest app to reach 100 million active users, reaching that milestone in two months
- It now has 250 million weekly active users, split across its consumer and commercial platforms
- OpenAI generated $1.2 billion revenue from ChatGPT in 2023 and is expected to almost triple that in 2024
- OpenAI was most recently valued at $157 billion, in a funding round led by Thrive Global
AI App Report 2024
Want to learn more about the AI app industry? In our AI App report, we cover financials, forecasts, usage, downloads, demographics and benchmarking data.
ChatGPT Overview
| Title | Title 2 |
|---|---|
| Launch date | December 2015 |
| HQ | San Francisco, California |
| People | Sam Altman (CEO, co-founder), Greg Brockman (chairman, president), Ilya Sutskever (chief scientist), Elon Musk (co-founder) |
| Business type | Private |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
ChatGPT Revenue
OpenAI revenues reached $1.2 billion in 2023 from ChatGPT, with another $400 million from API and other revenues. It is anticipating close to $3 billion in 2024.
ChatGPT revenue 2022 to 2023 ($mm)
| Year | Revenue ($mm) |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 100 |
| 2023 | 1200 |
Sources: Reuters, The Information
ChatGPT UsersÂ
ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months and more than doubled that figure the following year.
ChatGPT active users 2022 to 2024 (mm)
| Date | Users (mm) |
|---|---|
| December 2022 | 1 |
| January 2023 | 57 |
| February 2023 | 100 |
| September 2023 | 150 |
| August 2024 | 200 |
| October 2024 | 250 |
Sources: Bloomberg, CBS, Reuters
ChatGPT DownloadsÂ
ChatGPT quickly became one of the most popular apps on both app stores, regularly hitting the top ten most downloaded apps in the world charts.
ChatGPT downloads 2023 to 2024 (mm)
| Date | Downloads (mm) |
|---|---|
| H1 2023 | 13 |
| H2 2023 | 90 |
| H1 2024 | 105 |
Sources: Appfigures, AppMagic
OpenAI Valuation
OpenAI has seen its valuation rapidly increase over the past two years, with the most recent funding round in October valuing the startup at $157 billion.
OpenAI valuation 2022 to 2024 ($bn)
| Date | Valuation ($bn) |
|---|---|
| December 2022 | 20 |
| February 2023 | 29 |
| February 2024 | 80 |
| October 2024 | 157 |
Source: CNBC
OpenAI Funding Rounds
OpenAI has had 10 funding rounds, although the latest was a debt financing round rather than the typical investment round. It has received over $22 billion from these funding rounds, and probably a few million more from the undisclosed ones.
OpenAI funding rounds 2016 to 2024
| Funding | Date | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|
| $4bn | Oct 2024 | |
| $6.6bn | Oct 2024 | Thrive Capital |
| Undisclosed | Apr 2024 | |
| Undisclosed | Feb 2024 | Thrive Capital |
| $300m | Apr 2023 | Andreesen Horowitz, K2 Global, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital |
| $10bn | Jan 2023 | Microsoft |
| Undisclosed | Jan 2021 | Tiger Global Management |
| $1bn | July 2019 | Microsoft |
| Undisclosed | Mar 2019 | Khosla Ventures, Reid Hoffman Foundation |
| 120k | Aug 2016 | Y Combinator |
Source: Crunchbase
AI App Users
Over 300 million people use AI apps worldwide, with ChatGPT being the most widely used.
AI app users 2021 to 2024 (mm)
Want to learn more about AI apps? Check out the AI App Report
ChatGPT FAQ
How much does it cost to run ChatGPT?
Some have estimated it would cost $3 million per month for OpenAI to run ChatGPT, although that was in December when there was far less traffic (Tom Goldstein)
How much of a stake does Elon Musk have in OpenAI?
Elon Musk sold his entire stake of OpenAI to Microsoft in 2018 and is not affiliated with the company (Bisma Farrukh)
