ChatGPT Nears 1 Billion Weekly Active Users After Seven-Month Delay
OpenAI's ChatGPT is reportedly approaching the milestone of 1 billion weekly active users, which is about seven months later than the company's original target of late last year. This slower-than-expected growth is attributed to intense market competition and user experience issues with its latest model release. This delay highlights that OpenAI no longer holds an absolute monopoly in the generative AI space, as rivals like Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude successfully capture market share. It also shows that even dominant AI platforms face growth bottlenecks when new model updates fail to meet user expectations. According to internal reports, the growth rate of ChatGPT's weekly active users slowed down following the release of its next-generation model, GPT-5, last autumn due to user complaints about its performance. Meanwhile, competitors have rapidly improved their offerings, offering strong alternatives to OpenAI's ecosystem.
## BACKGROUND
ChatGPT, launched by OpenAI in late 2022, sparked the modern generative AI boom and quickly became one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history. To maintain its lead, OpenAI competes against tech giants like Google, which develops the Gemini model family, and startups like Anthropic, the creator of the Claude models.