OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman estimated during a September 8 podcast that 1.5 billion people have tried ChatGPT at some point, while only 1 billion remain weekly active users, leaving an retention gap of roughly 500 million. The platform reached 900 million weekly active users in early 2026 and crossed the 1 billion weekly threshold by July, while monthly users exceeded 1 billion by May-June. Brockman attributed this gap to misconceptions formed during initial interactions, with users giving up after receiving mediocre answers to poorly worded prompts. OpenAI surpassed 50 million paid subscribers in early 2026, serves over 2 million businesses, and is preparing for a potential IPO with a valuation in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Competition is intensifying with Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama-based products.
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