A new study by OpenAI has revealed that the majority of ChatGPT users are not turning to the tool for office tasks but for personal use.
According to the report, about 70% of all consumer queries on ChatGPT are unrelated to work, showing how deeply the AI has become embedded in people’s everyday lives.
The report, published as a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper by OpenAI’s Economic Research team and Harvard economist David Deming, analyzed 1.5 million anonymized conversations.
It found that most users engage ChatGPT for tasks such as practical guidance, writing assistance, and seeking information rather than programming or workplace-related projects.
Over 2.5 billion daily messages
According to the report, by July 2025, ChatGPT had amassed more than 700 million weekly active users who were sending 2.5 billion daily messages, roughly 29,000 per second.
Of these interactions, only 30% were tied to work, while the bulk reflected personal needs ranging from drafting messages and refining personal writing to decision-making support.
- The study shows that writing is the most common professional task, accounting for 42% of work-related usage, especially among managers and business professionals.
- But for personal use, users overwhelmingly rely on ChatGPT as a source of practical advice and quick information. Three categories: practical guidance, writing, and information seeking, make up nearly 78% of all queries.
- The report also noted that two-thirds of writing-related messages involved editing or improving existing drafts, suggesting that users see ChatGPT more as a collaborator than a content generator.
- Niche uses like coding (4.2% of queries) and self-reflection (1.9%) were far less common.
Global adoption on the rise
The report also highlights that AI adoption has broadened significantly, both across genders and across regions.
While only 37% of users had typically feminine names in early 2024, that share rose to 52% by mid-2025. Adoption in low- and middle-income countries has also been particularly strong, growing at rates more than four times higher than in wealthier countries.
“The findings show that consumer adoption has broadened beyond early-user groups, shrinking the gender gap in particular; that most conversations focus on everyday tasks like seeking information and practical guidance; and that usage continues to evolve in ways that create economic value through both personal and professional use.
“This widening adoption underscores our belief that access to AI should be treated as a basic right—a technology that people can access to unlock their potential and shape their own future,” OpenAI stated.
What you should know
- In August this year, OpenAI marked a record of 700 million weekly users with the launch of GPT-5, which was described as its most powerful and advanced AI model yet.
- Touted as OpenAI’s “smartest, fastest, most useful model yet,” GPT-5 marks a major step toward embedding intelligence at the core of business operations.
- The model, the company said, brings significant gains in reasoning, accuracy, speed, and structured thinking, and is already being adopted by major organisations across sectors.
