OpenAI surpasses one billion users

“Our models now have more than one billion active users and more than two million businesses. As people trust this technology more, they also use it more deeply,” the company said on its blog this week.

OpenAI was founded in 2015, and in November 2022 launched its first consumer product, the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. Nearly 4 years later, OpenAI has reached one billion users, while Facebook took 6 years to reach this milestone.

Theo AFP, OpenAI’s user base includes all of its AI interfaces, primarily ChatGPT, but also the programming-focused Codex, ChatGPT Work, a platform that allows users to access external applications.

According to some American media outlets, OpenAI had 900 million weekly active users as of the end of February, so the company had expected to reach the one billion mark sooner. However, fierce competition from rivals has slowed down the pace of this goal.

Theo WSJ, attracting users has become more difficult in recent months, as business customers have begun to shy away from the high costs of AI. This segment generates higher revenue and profit margin per user, becoming a top priority for OpenAI from the end of 2025. Anthropic, OpenAI’s major competitor, is famous for its Claude chatbot, which focuses on this customer group.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year that costs are becoming an increasingly bigger issue for customers. The company had been considering a price cut for weeks, as management feared Anthropic would undercut the price of the Claude model.

The emergence of AI agents, with the ability to perform tasks on demand, evaluate results, and automatically improve, causes the demand for computing power to skyrocket, also pushing up costs. To save, many people turn to less advanced but cheap models, including open models from China.

In early July, OpenAI released GPT-5.6 with three versions, of which Luna is priced at 1/5 of the highest performance version Sol. However, on July 30, the company announced a price cut of Luna by up to 80%, making it one of the cheapest advanced models on the market, including models from China. The mid-range version, GPT-5.6 Terra, is also 20% off.

“As the cost of useful AI falls, more work becomes more rewarding. As adoption increases, we will have more revenue, real-world feedback, and a better understanding of market needs, allowing us to continue investing in the next generation of research and infrastructure,” OpenAI said.