OpenAI’s ChatGPT explodes to 400M weekly users, with GPT-5 on the way

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has surpassed 400 million weekly active users, a milestone that underscores the corporate’s rising attain throughout each client and enterprise markets, in keeping with an X publish from chief working officer Brad Lightcap on Thursday.

The fast enlargement comes as OpenAI faces intensifying competitors from rivals similar to Elon Musk’s xAI and China’s DeepSeek, each of which have just lately launched high-performing fashions geared toward disrupting OpenAI’s dominance. Regardless of this, OpenAI has seen important traction within the enterprise sector, with greater than two million enterprise customers now utilizing ChatGPT at work — doubling from September 2024.

“ChatGPT just lately crossed 400M WAU, we really feel very lucky to serve 5% of the world each week,” Lightcap wrote. He additionally famous that utilization of OpenAI’s reasoning model API has surged fivefold because the launch of its o3 Mini model, which is designed to reinforce logical inference and structured problem-solving capabilities.

chatgpt just lately crossed 400M WAU, we really feel very lucky to serve 5% of the world each week

2M+ enterprise customers now use chatgpt at work, and reasoning mannequin API use is up 5x since o3 mini launch

we’ll convey GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 to speak and the API quickly, with limitless GPT-5 for… https://t.co/7hfyUcIyBW

— Brad Lightcap (@bradlightcap) February 20, 2025

AI is reshaping the office: 2 million companies now depend on ChatGPT

The surge in enterprise adoption represents an important validation of OpenAI’s technique to place ChatGPT as not only a chatbot for informal queries, however as a severe productiveness instrument for companies. Firms similar to Morgan Stanley, Uber and T-Mobile have built-in OpenAI’s fashions into their workflows, utilizing AI to generate reviews, automate customer support and streamline decision-making.

Notably, OpenAI’s progress comes amid heightened scrutiny over the function of generative AI in business-critical purposes. The corporate just lately secured its first federal company buyer, USAID, which is deploying ChatGPT Enterprise to cut back administrative burdens and streamline partnerships, in keeping with FedScoop. The enlargement into authorities contracts suggests OpenAI is succeeding in navigating the regulatory hurdles which have slowed adoption of AI in public-sector establishments.

On the similar time, OpenAI is deepening its presence in Japan by means of a joint venture with SoftBank, dubbed SB OpenAI Japan. The partnership, which includes a $3 billion annual funding from SoftBank, goals to combine OpenAI’s know-how into main Japanese enterprises, with preliminary deployments inside SoftBank’s personal ecosystem, together with its semiconductor subsidiary Arm and digital funds platform PayPay.

GPT-5 is coming: OpenAI’s subsequent leap in synthetic intelligence

Lightcap additionally revealed that OpenAI is getting ready to launch GPT-4.5 and GPT-5, with the latter set to merge the corporate’s GPT and o-series fashions right into a single, extra highly effective system.

“We’ll convey GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 to speak and the API quickly, with limitless GPT-5 without cost customers (plus customers can run at even larger intelligence),” he wrote.

This transfer alerts OpenAI’s ambition to consolidate its AI choices right into a unified mannequin that may deal with each basic conversational AI duties and extra specialised reasoning-based purposes.

By integrating the capabilities of its flagship GPT fashions with the structured problem-solving of the o-series, OpenAI is betting {that a} one-model-to-rule-them-all method will give it a aggressive edge over rivals which can be nonetheless segmenting their AI choices.

OPENAI ROADMAP UPDATE FOR GPT-4.5 and GPT-5:

We wish to do a greater job of sharing our meant roadmap, and a a lot better job simplifying our product choices.

We wish AI to “simply work” for you; we notice how sophisticated our mannequin and product choices have gotten.

We hate…

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 12, 2025

The timing of the GPT-5 launch is especially essential. Musk’s xAI just lately launched Grok 3, a mannequin that the corporate claims outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4o in sure benchmarks, together with math, science and coding. In the meantime, DeepSeek’s fast rise in China has added to the stress on OpenAI to keep up its lead in AI sophistication and accessibility.

The AI wars: OpenAI, xAI and DeepSeek battle for international dominance

OpenAI’s enlargement comes at a second of fierce competitors within the AI sector, with rival firms racing to safe market share in each client and enterprise purposes.

Musk, who co-founded OpenAI earlier than departing in 2018, has been vocal about his issues concerning the corporate’s shift towards a for-profit mannequin. The billionaire just lately launched an unsolicited $97 billion bid to take management of OpenAI, a transfer that was swiftly rejected by the corporate’s board. OpenAI has since positioned itself because the chief in enterprise AI deployments, with Microsoft’s backing offering each monetary stability and cloud infrastructure.

In the meantime, DeepSeek has disrupted the market with low-cost, open-source AI fashions which have gained traction, notably amongst builders cautious of OpenAI’s pricing mannequin. The Chinese language agency has claimed that it skilled its newest mannequin for below $6 million — an order of magnitude decrease than what OpenAI and xAI are spending on comparable techniques.

What’s subsequent for OpenAI? The way forward for AI in enterprise and past

OpenAI’s newest consumer metrics recommend that the corporate continues to be increasing at a fast clip regardless of the mounting competitors. The leap from 300 million to 400 million weekly lively customers in simply three months signifies that demand for AI-powered instruments continues to develop, with companies more and more integrating them into their on a regular basis operations.

The launch of GPT-5 might be an important check of OpenAI’s capability to keep up its management in AI. If the mannequin delivers on guarantees of upper reasoning functionality, higher personalization and improved effectivity, it might cement OpenAI’s place because the go-to supplier for each client and enterprise AI purposes.

Nevertheless, with Musk’s xAI, DeepSeek and Google’s Gemini fashions all vying for dominance, OpenAI can’t afford to decelerate. The subsequent 12 months will seemingly decide whether or not it stays the uncontested chief in generative AI, or whether or not a brand new participant will disrupt the steadiness of energy in synthetic intelligence.