ChatGPT has been the most popular AI chatbot since it went viral in late 2022. Many rivals have appeared since then, with Google’s Gemini being one of the most prominent contenders, but it’s still OpenAI’s chatbot that turns the most heads. New ChatGPT usage figures have leaked that show just how important the chatbot is to internet users, and OpenAI has since confirmed them. ChatGPT gets over 2.5 billion prompts a day worldwide, Axios has learned ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman embarking on a Washington, D.C. tour.
Those figures are important for Altman’s lobbying event, as the CEO will make a clear point to U.S. politicians: Artificial intelligence is a key development that will disrupt jobs, yes, but will not lead to the widespread issues others warn about.
Altman’s point is that AI is already improving productivity for many people at home and abroad. A source told Axios that Altman’s vision is “not all doomerism downside and not hand-waving away concerns — but focused on democratizing benefits (getting them into the hands of people to do stuff), not concentrating them in the hands of the few.”
ChatGPT’s worldwide reach is significant
Of those 2.5 billion daily prompts, some 330 million ChatGPT queries are filed every day in the US. Also, over 500 million weekly active users rely on the ChatGPT Free tier rather than a premium subscription. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the figures Axios produced are accurate. As the tech blog points out, 2.5 billion prompts a day amount to over 912.5 billion requests a year. Comparatively, Google Search sees 5 trillion queries a year.
It might seem like Google is still the clear winner here in a competition with OpenAI, but the latter is a new entrant. ChatGPT can perform internet searches for most of the things you ask the AI. It happens automatically, to the point where you don’t have to perform a specific ChatGPT Search. On that note, ChatGPT Search can be your default search engine, replacing Google Search.
Google has been adding several exciting AI features to Google Search in recent months under the new AI Mode tab. It’s almost like getting a Gemini chat experience inside search. While that happened, rumors swirled about OpenAI’s product plans for the near future. The company is rumored to launch an internet browser of its own with ChatGPT built in. Perplexity already launched a similar product called Comet, which is a browser that lets you interact with the AI about anything on your screen.
It’s all about the future of ChatGPT
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Agent a few days ago, an AI model that can browse the web with Deep Research abilities in a virtual computer on your behalf. Then there’s Fidji Simo’s arrival at OpenAI. The former Instacart CEO and incoming CEO of Applications at OpenAI penned an essay on OpenAI.com this week to lay out her vision for helping OpenAI with its mission to democratize AI access and improve the AI tools the company has to offer. Finally, OpenAI is about to unveil GPT-5, ChatGPT’s next big upgrade. GPT-5 should unify all of the company’s AI experiences into one. The AI will know when it needs to perform a Deep Research and when to use Canvas based on a user’s prompt.
In the more distant future, OpenAI will release its first ChatGPT hardware product, with former Apple design guru Jony Ive helming the hardware division. ChatGPT will become a highly personal assistant by then, likely harnessing many of the features and upgrades listed above.
ChatGPT seems to have a bright future ahead if the plan is to make powerful, affordable AI available to the masses without destroying jobs in the process. To make that happen, OpenAI will need a partner in the U.S. government. OpenAI will need resources (cheap energy and datacenters) to power even more daily prompts on ChatGPT. It will need friendlier regulation to advanced AI development at breakneck speeds. And OpenAI might need specific national security policies that will make it harder for rivals from China, like DeepSeek, to compete against ChatGPT. President Trump will speak at the “Winning the AI Race” summit on Wednesday. The White House will release its AI Action Plan on the same day.
