ChatGPT missed 1B weekly user goal
- OpenAI missed an internal goal to get ChatGPT to 1 billion weekly active users by the end of 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. - OpenAI had 400 million weekly users in February 2025, then 500 million in March and 700 million by August, showing growth continued below target. - The miss lands as OpenAI chases enterprise sales and heavier compute spending ahead of a possible IPO. (reuters.com)
OpenAI missed an internal target to reach 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025, according to a Wall Street Journal report published April 27. (reuters.com) Reuters said the company also fell short of revenue goals in recent months, raising internal concern about whether OpenAI can keep funding its heavy data-center commitments. Chief executive Sam Altman and finance chief Sarah Friar said in a statement they remain aligned on buying as much computing power as possible. (reuters.com) The user miss came after OpenAI publicly reported strong growth through 2025. Chief operating officer Brad Lightcap told CNBC in February that ChatGPT had 400 million weekly active users, up from 300 million in December 2024. (cnbc.com) By the end of March 2025, ChatGPT had reached 500 million weekly active users, and by early August OpenAI said it was on track to hit 700 million that week. OpenAI’s own September research post described ChatGPT as having 700 million weekly active users. (techcrunch.com) (openai.com) Those figures show the company kept adding users rapidly, but not fast enough to match the internal 1 billion goal by December 2025. Reuters also said ChatGPT’s growth slowed late last year and that OpenAI dealt with subscriber defections. (reuters.com) The backdrop is a company spending aggressively while trying to turn scale into durable revenue. OpenAI said in June 2025 that its annualized revenue run rate had reached $10 billion, up from $5.5 billion in December 2024. (reuters.com) At the same time, OpenAI has been leaning harder on workplace products. The company said in its 2025 enterprise report that more than 1 million business customers use its tools, and later reported 9 million business subscribers as weekly ChatGPT usage approached 1 billion. (openai.com) (cnet.com) Bloomberg said April 28 that OpenAI had missed its own goals for new users and sales as it heads toward a possible initial public offering. The shortfall does not erase ChatGPT’s growth; it shows how much faster OpenAI had expected that growth to be. (bloomberg.com)
