OpenAI Reaches 1 Billion Active Users as AI Becomes Daily Habit

OpenAI Reaches 1 Billion Active Users as AI Becomes Daily Habit

OpenAI’s models now reach more than 1 billion active users and more than 2 million businesses, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in a Friday (July 31) blog post.

OpenAI has found that these users deploy artificial intelligence (AI) more often and more deeply as they gain confidence in it. Among individuals, after six months of using the technology, people send 50% more messages each day and use ChatGPT for twice as many kinds of work. Among businesses, companies often start using AI with one team or workflow and then expand adoption across operations, Friar said.

“We are still early,” Friar said. “More capable systems will complete longer projects, coordinate across tools, and handle more of the work between an idea and a finished result. Individuals and small businesses will gain capabilities once available only to much larger organizations. Enterprises will apply intelligence more broadly across their operations.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The AI On-Ramp: Data Shows How Everyday Tasks Build Consumer Habits” found that the way the use of generative AI will become a mass habit is through small, repeatable tasks people do everyday. Some of the most common, truly universal usages of AI are finding product links, drafting texts or emails, and symptom lookup, according to the report.

Another PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Financial Services Pull Ahead in the Enterprise AI Race,” found that while all enterprise sectors have jumped into AI, financial services and insurance firms are among those with the highest adoption. The industry’s most adopted use cases include structured, auditable back-office functions, per the report.

Friar’s blog post came a day after OpenAI announced that it made changes to the price or the performance of three of its AI models to improve their performance per dollar across enterprise workloads.

OpenAI cut the price of GPT-5.6 Luna by 80%, cut the price of GPT-5.6 Terra by 20% and provided faster performance of GPT-5.6 Sol in the API while leaving its price unchanged.

Friar said in her blog post: “These are not simply changes to a price list. They expand the range of work that becomes practical and give customers more flexibility to balance intelligence, speed, reliability and cost.”