OpenAI’s flagship AI chatbot, ChatGPT, returned to solid growth in the latter half of 2024, according to a new report published on Thursday by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). While it took ChatGPT nine months to grow from 100 million weekly active users in November 2023 to 200 million in August 2024, it’s now taken less than six months for the app to double those numbers yet again, the report found.
Shortly after its November 2022 release as a research preview, ChatGPT became the fastest app ever to reach 100 million monthly active users — a milestone it hit in only two months’ time.
By November 2023, ChatGPT had reached another milestone of 100 million weekly active users, which grew to 300 million by December 2024, then 400 million in February 2025.
According to a16z, initial consumer demand for ChatGPT was driven more by novelty. That is, consumers were interested in trying the app but weren’t necessarily sure how it would fit into their everyday lives.
However, ChatGPT’s more recent growth comes on the heels of the release of new models and functionality, including the launch of GPT-4o, which added multimodal capabilities. Shortly after that model’s launch, ChatGPT usage spiked from April through May 2024.
Later, after the arrival of Advanced Voice Mode, usage grew again from July to August 2024. The o1 model series, led to increased usage during September to October 2024.
On mobile, ChatGPT’s growth has been more consistent, the firm points out.
Users of the ChatGPT mobile app have increased by 5% to 15% every month over the past year, with 175 million of ChatGPT’s total 400 million weekly active users now accessing the app on mobile devices.
The report also examines the impact rivals like DeepSeek have had on the market. The app surged to No. 2 globally in just 10 days and reached No. 2 on mobile in February, capturing 15% of ChatGPT’s mobile user base.
On mobile, DeepSeek users are even slightly more engaged than Perplexity and Claude users, according to data from mobile intelligence provider Sensor Tower. However, it still lags behind ChatGPT on this front.
Other findings in the new market analysis include recommendations of tools for AI developers and coders, rankings of the top AI apps by category and revenue, and rankings of the top gen AI apps across mobile and web.
On the latter front, ChatGPT comes in at No. 1 by unique monthly visits on the web and monthly active users on mobile, the report noted, citing data from market intelligence provider Similarweb.
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