How People Use ChatGPT

Despite the rapid adoption of LLM chatbots, little is known about how they are used.We document the growth of ChatGPT's consumer product from its launch in November 2022 through July 2025, when it had been adopted by around 10% of the world's adult population.Early adopters were disproportionately male but the gender gap has narrowed dramatically, and we find higher growth rates in lower-income countries.Using a privacy-preserving automated pipeline, we classify usage patterns within a representative sample of ChatGPT conversations.We find steady growth in work-related messages but even faster growth in non-work-related messages, which have grown from 53% to more than 70% of all usage.Work usage is more common…