A recent study by OpenAI has uncovered that most people who use ChatGPT aren’t doing so for professional or office-related tasks, but rather for personal matters.
The findings indicate that roughly 70% of all user inquiries on ChatGPT come from consumers and are not connected to work, illustrating how integrated this AI tool has become in daily life.
This analysis, framed in a working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) by OpenAI’s Economic Research team and Harvard economist David Deming, examined 1.5 million anonymous conversations.
It discovered that instead of programming or work-project related tasks, users mostly turn to ChatGPT for things like seeking practical advice, help with writing, or gathering information.
By July 2025, the service had more than 700 million active users weekly, who were sending about 2.5 billion messages each day — which works out to around 29,000 messages per second. Out of all those interactions, only about 30% were tied to work, while the rest were driven by personal uses: drafting messages, polishing writing, decision-making support, and so on.
In the world of work, writing emerged as the most frequent task among those using ChatGPT for professional purposes, making up roughly 42% of work-related usage. This was especially pronounced among managers and professionals in business roles.
On the personal side, users overwhelmingly lean on the tool for everyday guidance and quick information. Nearly 78% of all queries fall into three categories: practical guidance, writing, and information seeking.
The report also highlights that in two-thirds of writing-related prompts, users were not having content generated from scratch but were editing or improving drafts they already had — an indication that many see ChatGPT more as a partner in refining content than just a content factory.
Less common uses like coding (about 4.2% of all queries) and self-reflection (about 1.9%) appear far down the list in terms of frequency.
The study further points out that AI’s uptake is expanding significantly in terms of both gender representation and geographic spread.
Early in 2024, only about 37% of users had names typically associated with feminine gender, but by mid-2025, that proportion had increased to 52%. Meanwhile, growth in ChatGPT adoption in low- and middle-income countries has been markedly faster — more than four times the rate in wealthier nations.
“The findings show that consumer adoption has broadened beyond early-user groups, shrinking the gender gap in particular; that most conversations focus on everyday tasks like seeking information and practical guidance; and that usage continues to evolve in ways that create economic value through both personal and professional use.”
“This widening adoption underscores our belief that access to AI should be treated as a basic right—a technology that people can access to unlock their potential and shape their own future,” OpenAI stated.
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