The November 2026 ChatGPT statistics report: 93 sourced figures

This is the November edition of our ChatGPT statistics report, part of our AI statistics report. It covers how many people use ChatGPT, how they use it, market share, revenue and valuation, recent launches, and what the numbers mean for search. Every figure is printed as its source states it, with the source's date and the sample or method beside it. OpenAI's own statements are kept apart from measurement-firm estimates and from figures that news outlets reported from leaks, slides or unnamed people; each row says which it is. Figures we could not trace to a primary source are listed near the end and left out of the tables. Each table row gives the figure, the source and date, the sample or method, and the day we checked it.

• "80.47%" of AI chatbot referrals worldwide, September 2026. Source: Statcounter Global Stats.
• "ChatGPT: 56.4%" of Gen AI website traffic, September 2026. Source: Similarweb, update of 12 October 2026.
• "1.2B weekly users", 29 September 2026. Source: OpenAI, DevDay 2026 recap.
• "OpenAI sits at 341:1" crawl-to-refer, September 2026. Source: SEOmator, from Cloudflare Radar data.
• Annualised revenue for September 2026 "almost $50 billion", told to investors. Source: Reuters, 8 October 2026, reported.
• "The fastest mobile app ever to reach one billion monthly active users in May 2026". Source: Sensor Tower, State of AI 2026, 16 June 2026.
• 44% of US adults say they use ChatGPT, survey of 17-23 February 2026. Source: Pew Research Center.
• "53% of messages were not related to work in June 2024, which climbed to 73% by June 2025". Source: NBER working paper 34255, consumer plans.

The share figures above come from three measurement firms that count different things: Similarweb counts website traffic, Sensor Tower counts unique users across app and web, and Statcounter counts clicks that chatbots send to its member sites.

How many people use ChatGPT

OpenAI's latest figure is 1.2B weekly users, stated on 29 September 2026 (OpenAI, DevDay 2026 recap). That is up from 400 million weekly active users in February 2025, as CNBC reported on 20 February 2025. Weekly active users are OpenAI's own metric; the monthly figures in this section come from measurement firms.

Weekly active users, OpenAI's own count

ChatGPT's weekly user count has eight dated points in this report, and each point keeps the wording its source used. CNBC carried the first one: 400 million weekly active users in February 2025, given by OpenAI's chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap (CNBC, 20 February 2025).

By October 2025 the count had doubled. Sam Altman, OpenAI chief executive, told the DevDay keynote on 6 October 2025: "More than 800 million people use ChatGPT every week, and we process over 6 billion tokens per minute on the API." (TechCrunch, 6 October 2025)

The Verge reported that ChatGPT surpassed the 1 billion weekly users milestone in July 2026 (The Verge, 29 September 2026). OpenAI's own posts stated more than 900M weekly active users on 27 February 2026 and more than 1 billion weekly active users on 31 August 2026.

OpenAI's 31 July 2026 post says "more than one billion active users" without the word "weekly"; The Verge's headline that day says weekly. Both appear in the tables with the wording each source used.

Monthly users, measured by app and web firms

Monthly users are a different unit, counted by measurement firms rather than by OpenAI. Sensor Tower says ChatGPT became "the fastest mobile app ever to reach one billion monthly active users in May 2026" (Sensor Tower, State of AI 2026, 16 June 2026). Reuters first reported the milestone: the ChatGPT app reached 1 billion monthly active users in May, "roughly three years after launch" (Reuters, 2 June 2026).

Similarweb's app data puts the ChatGPT mobile app at 853 million monthly active users in June 2025 and 1.12 billion in May 2026, a 31% gain (Similarweb, 8 September 2026). TechCrunch, citing Sensor Tower data, put ChatGPT at "over 1.1 billion monthly users" in May 2026, ahead of Gemini at 662 million and Claude at 245 million, and noted that OpenAI itself counts weekly active users.

Subscribers, business users and Codex

Paying users are separate from weekly users. OpenAI stated more than 50 million consumer subscribers on 27 February 2026 and again on 31 March 2026, and more than 9 million paying business users on 27 February 2026. All three are company statements.

Weekly Codex users "more than tripled since the start of the year to 1.6M" by 27 February 2026, and Codex served "over 2 million weekly users" by 31 March 2026, both company statements. Separately, CNBC reported that OpenAI's "AI coding and work product has hit 20 million weekly active users", from slides at an all-hands meeting on 19 August 2026; that figure is reported, not an OpenAI statement.

How many US adults use it

In Pew Research Center's survey of 17-23 February 2026, 44% of US adults said they use ChatGPT (Pew Research Center, 17 June 2026). Pew's own trend series shows the share more than doubling, from 18% in 2023 to 44% in 2026, though Pew changed the question wording in 2026.

How people use ChatGPT

NBER working paper 34255, "How People Use ChatGPT", found that by July 2025, 700 million people were sending ChatGPT 18 billion messages a week, "around 10% of the global adult population", and about 70% of consumer queries were unrelated to work (NBER, September 2025).

The sample matters. The paper's primary sample is messages sent to ChatGPT on consumer plans (Free, Plus, Pro) between May 2024 and June 2025. It excludes Business, Enterprise and Education plans, and it says nothing for 2026. Every figure below covers consumer plans only.

The study also breaks messages down by topic, intent, work use, gender and age; each share appears in the table in the paper's own wording.

OpenAI's own 2026 note is a company statement, not part of the study: "Six months after signing up, people send roughly 50 percent more messages each day and use ChatGPT for about twice as many kinds of work" (OpenAI, 31 July 2026).

ChatGPT market share: web, app and referrals

Three firms measure ChatGPT's share, and each counts something different. Similarweb puts ChatGPT at 56.4% of Gen AI website traffic in September 2026. Sensor Tower data put ChatGPT's AI assistant share at 46.4% at the end of May 2026. Statcounter puts ChatGPT at 80.47% of AI chatbot referrals in September 2026. This section sits inside our wider report on AI usage statistics across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity.

Share of AI website traffic (Similarweb)

Similarweb's monthly update measures website traffic only; it does not count the ChatGPT app. In the update of 12 October 2026, ChatGPT's share for September 2026 was 56.4% (Similarweb, on LinkedIn). The same update labels October 2025 at 71.8% and April 2026 at 53.7%, the low point among the months it labels, and puts July 2026 at 54.3% and August 2026 at 55.6%.

The nearest rivals in the September 2026 update were Gemini at 25.0% and Claude at 9.6%; our Google Gemini statistics and Claude AI statistics reports track those two.

Share of AI app and web users (Sensor Tower)

Sensor Tower's True Audience measure counts unique users across mobile app and web. ChatGPT's True Audience share "fell below 50% for the first time in March 2026" (Sensor Tower, 16 June 2026), having commanded over 50% until January. TechCrunch reported the end-of-May 2026 split with Gemini at 27.7% and Claude at 10.3%.

Share of chatbot referrals (Statcounter)

Statcounter counts clicks that chatbots send to sites running its analytics, so its unit is referrals, not people. ChatGPT's share of AI chatbot referrals worldwide was 80.47% in September 2026 (Statcounter Global Stats).

Visits and rank of chatgpt.com

Similarweb put chatgpt.com at "about 5.7 billion monthly visits and 467 million monthly unique visitors worldwide" on a 12-month average to May 2026. Forbes Middle East reported ChatGPT "amassed about 5.9 billion web visits worldwide in September, according to a projection by digital intelligence firm Similarweb" (Forbes Middle East, 4 October 2026), against October 2025, when chatgpt.com "was visited an estimated 6.2 billion times". Similarweb's ranking of all websites placed chatgpt.com at number five on 1 October 2026.

OpenAI revenue, valuation and IPO

OpenAI said on 31 March 2026 that it was generating $2B in revenue per month, a company statement. CNBC reported an annualised run rate of $40 billion in August 2026; that figure is reported, first by Bloomberg, not an OpenAI statement. OpenAI's last closed funding round, announced on 31 March 2026, valued the company at $852 billion post-money, also a company statement.

Revenue and run rate

Investing.com, reporting Bloomberg, said OpenAI's finance chief had noted an end-2025 run rate exceeding $20 billion (13 August 2026). OpenAI then stated "$2B in revenue per month" on 31 March 2026. By August, CNBC confirmed a run rate that "has hit $40 billion", adding that the run rate rose 20% month over month in July and that business customers grew 32%, from slides it viewed (CNBC, 14 August 2026).

The quarterly figures are reported too: revenue of $6.7 billion in Q2 2026 against $5.7 billion in Q1, and an operating loss including stock-based compensation of $12.3 billion in Q2 against $9.3 billion in Q1 (Wall Street Journal, 18 August 2026; loss figures via Yahoo Finance, 19 August 2026).

On the mix of revenue, OpenAI stated on 31 March 2026 that enterprise made up "more than 40% of our revenue". By August, CNBC reported the lines had crossed. "We entered the year at 60-40, but enterprise has accelerated much faster than expected and those lines have now crossed," said Sarah Friar, OpenAI chief financial officer, to investors, in remarks relayed by an attendee and reported by CNBC on 14 August 2026.

Valuation, IPO plans and projected cash burn

OpenAI announced $110B in new investment at a $730B pre-money valuation on 27 February 2026, then closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation on 31 March 2026. Both are company statements.

Everything since is reported. Bloomberg reported early talks with investors at a valuation of more than $1.2 trillion (Bloomberg via NDTV Profit, 19 September 2026). CNBC reported that Friar told an all-hands meeting the company "will be a public company in 2027", and that OpenAI confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June (CNBC, 19 August 2026). Reuters, citing a Financial Times report of a company presentation, reported a projected cash burn of $278 billion between 2026 and 2030 (Reuters, 18 September 2026). Bloomberg relayed the FT's revenue projection: $36 billion in 2026, rising to $350 billion in 2030.

ChatGPT Ads

Both ChatGPT Ads milestones are company statements. The ads pilot "reached more than $100 million in ARR in under six weeks" by 31 March 2026. By 31 August 2026, ChatGPT Ads had "reached $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate" in under 200 days, and were available in over 40 countries. CNBC reported a further expansion to 26 more countries on 21 October 2026, bringing the total to 89.

Recent ChatGPT launches and changes

OpenAI's autumn releases centre on the GPT-6 family. The company introduced GPT-6 Astra, calling it "the world's most intelligent and aligned model", with API standard pricing of $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens on the GPT-6 Astra page, updated to 29 September 2026; Fortune reported the launch happened the week before its 11 September 2026 article. OpenAI added GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on 22 September 2026, then announced GPT-6.1 Sol at DevDay on 29 September 2026 at "a fifth of its standard input and output token prices".

Demand strained the top tier. OpenAI paused new sign-ups and upgrades to the most expensive Pro plan, which provides 20 times the usage of the Plus tier, in an announcement on 10 September 2026 (Fortune, 11 September 2026). "We're pulling all the levers possible to sustain the demand, but I've not seen anything like it until now and we went through very steep growth before," said Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI head of product, on X.

The Atlas browser is gone. The Verge reported the sunset plan on 9 July 2026, "targeting an August 9th date", and 9to5Mac confirmed Atlas was "scheduled to stop working on August 9" (9to5Mac, 4 August 2026). OpenAI's Help Center now states "ChatGPT Atlas has been retired and no longer receives updates".

What ChatGPT's numbers mean for search

ChatGPT sends most chatbot referrals: 80.47% in September 2026, per Statcounter. But crawling dwarfs referral traffic. OpenAI's crawler fetched 341 pages for every referral in September 2026 (SEOmator, from Cloudflare Radar data), down from 1,309:1 in January 2026. Google's ratio was 4.7:1 in September 2026, while Perplexity crawled 2,373 pages for every referral it sent back, up from 112 in January, in the same SEOmator series; our Perplexity AI statistics report tracks that platform.

Cloudflare, which publishes the ratio, defines it as comparing "the number of crawling requests for HTML pages from the crawler associated with a given platform, to the number of HTML page requests referred by that platform (measuring human traffic)" (Cloudflare, 29 August 2025). Crawling itself is covered in how a search engine crawls, indexes and ranks pages. OpenAI's ratio has been higher in the past: Cloudflare Radar's 2025 year in review recorded spikes of "as much as 3,700:1 in March" 2025.

Statcounter put AI chatbots at 0.4% of all referrals worldwide in September 2026, against 91.01% for search, and its head-to-head page reads Google 99.61% against ChatGPT 0.39%; Statcounter states its shares count referrals, not searches. Similarweb found ChatGPT sent "more than 80% of AI referrals to the top 1,000 global domains" in its mid-2025 analysis, and found citations in US ChatGPT prompts rising "from about 1.6% in June 2025 to roughly 6.8% by May 2026". For what these referral patterns mean in practice, see our guide to generative engine optimization for link building.

OpenAI's crawl-to-refer ratio by month in 2026, from SEOmator's pull of Cloudflare Radar data:

Figures we left out

Some figures circulate on ChatGPT statistics roundups, but we could not open a primary source that states them, so they are not in the tables.

• A run rate "as high as ~$68-70 billion by late September", credited to sources speaking to CNBC: no CNBC article with that figure was found.
• A "~$7 billion employee tender in August": not found.
• "ChatGPT for Teens launched globally on August 18, 2026": not traced.
• An OpenAI crawl-to-referral ratio of 309:1 in Q3 2026, credited to Cloudflare Radar via TechnologyChecker: no Radar quarterly figure was found.
• 4.5% of US consumers having a paid ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude subscription, per a16z: not traced.

FAQ

How many people use ChatGPT?

OpenAI's latest figure is 1.2B weekly users, stated on 29 September 2026. Sensor Tower counted one billion monthly active users of the ChatGPT mobile app in May 2026. Weekly users are OpenAI's own metric; the monthly count is a measurement-firm estimate.

Is ChatGPT losing market share?

It depends on the unit. Similarweb's website traffic share fell from 71.8% in October 2025 to 56.4% in September 2026. Sensor Tower's True Audience share, unique users across app and web, fell below 50% in March 2026. Statcounter's referral share, clicks sent to member sites, was 80.47% in September 2026.

How much money does OpenAI make?

OpenAI stated on 31 March 2026 that it was generating $2B in revenue per month. CNBC reported an annualised run rate of $40 billion in August 2026; the run-rate figure is reported, not an OpenAI statement.

Is OpenAI a public company?

Not yet. CNBC reported on 19 August 2026 that the chief financial officer told staff the company "will be a public company in 2027", and that OpenAI made a confidential IPO filing in June 2026. Both points are reported.

How much traffic does ChatGPT send to websites?

ChatGPT accounted for 80.47% of AI chatbot referrals in September 2026, per Statcounter. OpenAI's crawl-to-refer ratio in September 2026 was 341:1, meaning its crawler requested 341 pages for every page request it referred, per Cloudflare Radar data.

What is the difference between weekly and monthly ChatGPT users?

OpenAI counts weekly active users, its own stated metric. Monthly counts come from measurement firms: Sensor Tower's one billion figure for May 2026, for example, counts monthly active users of the ChatGPT mobile app.

How we check these figures

We open every figure at its source and copy the sentence that states it. Each figure carries the source's date and the sample or method beside it. We mark which figures are OpenAI's own statements, which are measurement-firm estimates, and which news outlets reported from leaks, slides or unnamed people. Figures we could not trace to a primary source are named in the left-out list and kept out of the tables. We republish the report each month with the month in the title.