Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
ChatGPT attracted 1 million users within 5 days of its launch
ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023
The service is the fastest-growing consumer application in history
ChatGPT received approximately 1.6 billion visits in June 2023
Traffic to ChatGPT dropped by 9.7% in June 2023 compared to May 2023
ChatGPT hit 10 million daily queries in early 2023
12.31% of the user base is located in the United States
India represents approximately 5.41% of the total user base
Users aged 18-24 make up approximately 30% of the traffic
The daily cost to run ChatGPT is estimated at $700,000
The cost per query is estimated to be around 36 cents for commercial models
OpenAI projects $1 billion in revenue by 2024
The average user spends about 7 minutes and 27 seconds on the site per visit
The bounce rate for ChatGPT is approximately 38.67%
Approximately 15% of users use ChatGPT to generate code
Demographics & Geography
- 112.31% of the user base is located in the United States
- 2India represents approximately 5.41% of the total user base
- 3Users aged 18-24 make up approximately 30% of the traffic
- 4Male users account for roughly 59.7% of the audience
- 5Female users account for roughly 40.3% of the audience
- 6Brazil accounts for roughly 4% of ChatGPT traffic
- 7Japan represents roughly 3-4% of total traffic
- 825-34 year olds make up roughly 29% of the user base
- 963% of Americans are aware of ChatGPT's existence
- 10Only 18% of US adults have used ChatGPT as of late 2023
- 11UK makes up approximately 2.9% of the traffic share
- 12France makes up approximately 2.8% of the traffic share
- 13Germany accounts for approximately 2.7% of the traffic share
- 14Canada accounts for roughly 2.6% of the traffic share
- 1534% of users are aged 35-44
- 1616% of users are aged 45-54
- 178% of users are aged 55-64
- 184% of users are aged 65+
- 19Spanish is the second most used language for queries
- 20Indonesian users represent 1.5% of traffic
Interpretation
ChatGPT's daily queries reveal a globally dispersed, male-leaning audience concentrated among younger adults—about 30% aged 18 to 24, 29% aged 25 to 34 and 34% aged 35 to 44—with 12.31% of traffic from the United States and 5.41% from India, smaller but notable shares from Brazil, Japan, the UK, France, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, Spanish as the second-most used language, and a telling gap in the United States where 63% have heard of ChatGPT but only 18% have used it, suggesting that awareness still outruns adoption.
Infrastructure & Costs
- 1The daily cost to run ChatGPT is estimated at $700,000
- 2The cost per query is estimated to be around 36 cents for commercial models
- 3OpenAI projects $1 billion in revenue by 2024
- 4Training GPT-4 cost over $100 million
- 5OpenAI charges $20/month for the Plus subscription
- 6Microsoft invested $10 billion into OpenAI to support query loads
- 7Running ChatGPT requires tens of thousands of Nvidia A100 GPUs
- 8ChatGPT Enterprise offers unlimited high-speed queries
- 9ChatGPT uses approximately 500ml of water for every 20-50 questions
- 10ChatGPT Plus subscription revenue is a primary driver of operational funding
- 11Daily query limits were imposed on GPT-4 users (e.g. 50msgs/3hr)
- 12GPT-3.5 turbo costs $0.0015 per 1K input tokens
- 13GPT-4 turbo costs $0.01 per 1K input tokens
- 14OpenAI valuation hit $29 billion shortly after ChatGPT launch
- 15ChatGPT consumes nearly 1GWh of energy daily
- 16Estimated annual revenue for 2023 is $200 million
- 17OpenAI raised $300 million at a $27B-29B valuation
- 18Compute costs double every 3-4 months for AI models
- 19Microsoft Azure provides the exclusive cloud infrastructure
- 20The AI market size is expected to reach $407 billion by 2027
Interpretation
With a roughly $700,000 daily tab, nearly 1 GWh of electricity use, and about half a liter of water burned through for every few dozen queries, ChatGPT increasingly feels like a power plant with a venture capitalist riding shotgun, as $20 a month subscriptions, enterprise deals, and Microsoft's $10 billion backing try to corral runaway compute costs, billion dollar training bills, and a race to grab a slice of a $407 billion AI market.
Milestones & Growth
- 1ChatGPT attracted 1 million users within 5 days of its launch
- 2ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023
- 3The service is the fastest-growing consumer application in history
- 4Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have registered accounts
- 5ChatGPT reached 1 billion total visits by March 2023
- 6ChatGPT passed the US Medical Licensing Exam
- 7ChatGPT launched on iOS in May 2023
- 8The iOS app saw 500,000 downloads in its first 6 days
- 9Over 2 million developers build on the API impacting query volume
- 10ChatGPT outperformed 99% of students in the 2023 Verbal GRE
- 11ChatGPT attained 10 million queries per day faster than Instagram
- 12ChatGPT reached 100 million users 2 months after launch
- 13TikTok took 9 months to reach 100 million users by comparison
- 14Instagram took 2.5 years to reach 100 million users by comparison
- 15ChatGPT Android app launched in July 2023
- 16OpenAI CEO confirmed "user retention is high"
- 17GPT-4 was released on March 14, 2023
- 18Plugins were introduced in March 2023
- 19Web browsing capability was reinstated in Sept 2023
- 20Voice conversations were added to the app in Sept 2023
Interpretation
ChatGPT has behaved like a startup rocket that learned to pilot the internet, soaring from one million users in five days to 100 million in two months, hitting a billion visits by March 2023, winning accounts at over 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies, drawing more than two million developers, rapidly rolling out GPT-4, plugins, web browsing, voice, and mobile apps, and even clearing professional exams and outpacing most students, which together show it has moved from curiosity to indispensable internet-scale infrastructure.
Traffic & User Volume
- 1ChatGPT received approximately 1.6 billion visits in June 2023
- 2Traffic to ChatGPT dropped by 9.7% in June 2023 compared to May 2023
- 3ChatGPT hit 10 million daily queries in early 2023
- 4Mobile users account for a significant portion of daily queries post-app launch
- 5ChatGPT has over 100 million weekly active users as of Nov 2023
- 6Total visits peaked at 1.8 billion in May 2023
- 7Direct traffic acts as the main source of visits (approx 88%)
- 8Social media referrals account for less than 5% of traffic
- 9YouTube is the largest social media traffic driver to ChatGPT
- 10The service experienced a 3.1 million monthly download rate on Android
- 1113 million unique daily visitors recorded in January 2023
- 12Daily visits returned to growth in August 2023 (+0.4%)
- 13Queries dropped during US summer school holidays
- 1453.2% of ChatGPT social traffic comes from YouTube
- 15WhatsApp refers roughly 12% of social traffic
- 16Facebook refers roughly 10% of social traffic
- 17Twitter/X refers roughly 5% of social traffic
- 18LinkedIn refers roughly 3% of social traffic
- 19ChatGPT web traffic decreased by 3.2% in August 2023
- 20Chat.openai.com had 1.5 billion visits in September 2023
Interpretation
ChatGPT reads like a summer blockbuster that cooled slightly after its May 1.8 billion traffic peak, with visits sliding to about 1.6 billion in June (a 9.7% drop) and roughly 1.5 billion by September, yet it stayed hugely sticky—boasting over 100 million weekly active users, early‑2023 highs of 10 million daily queries and 13 million unique daily visitors, a surging mobile audience supported by about 3.1 million Android downloads per month, and traffic that is overwhelmingly direct at around 88% while social referrals remain under 5% and are dominated by YouTube with smaller shares from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X and LinkedIn.
Usage Patterns & Engagement
- 1The average user spends about 7 minutes and 27 seconds on the site per visit
- 2The bounce rate for ChatGPT is approximately 38.67%
- 3Approximately 15% of users use ChatGPT to generate code
- 4Visit duration dropped by 8.5% between May and June 2023
- 5Programming is the most popular topic for ChatGPT queries
- 6Creative writing requests make up about 9% of user activity
- 7Average pages per visit is approximately 4.26
- 850% of companies using ChatGPT replaced workers
- 9Marketing professionals are among the heaviest users of query generation
- 1047% of users use ChatGPT for fun or learning
- 1128% of users utilize queries for coding assistance
- 1237% of marketing agencies use ChatGPT for SEO queries
- 1380% of employees have used ChatGPT at work without employer permission
- 14Mobile session duration is lower than desktop session duration
- 156 pm to 8 pm is the peak usage time window
- 1692% of developers use AI coding tools like ChatGPT
- 1770% of developers say ChatGPT gives them an advantage at work
- 18DALL-E 3 integration increased creative query types
- 19The bounce rate improved (decreased) slightly in late 2023
- 20User retention for the app on Day 30 is roughly 15%
Interpretation
Overall these statistics portray ChatGPT as a powerful evening workhorse, part productivity tool and part workplace dilemma: the average visitor spends about 7 minutes and 27 seconds across roughly 4.26 pages, drawn mainly to programming and marketing queries, with about 15% generating code, 28% seeking coding assistance, 37% of marketing agencies using it for SEO and creative requests rising to about 9% after DALL-E 3; yet despite 92% of developers using AI coding tools and 70% saying the tool gives them an advantage, visit duration dropped 8.5% between May and June 2023, bounce rate remains around 38.7% though it improved late in 2023, mobile sessions are shorter than desktop, half of companies report replacing workers, 80% of employees have used it at work without permission, peak usage is 6 to 8 pm, and day 30 retention is only about 15%.
