Openai reveals how (and which) people use Chatppt

The models of large languages ​​remain largely black boxes in terms of what is happening inside to produce the outings they make. They were also a bit of a black box in terms of who uses them and what they do with them. OPENAI, with the help of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), has decided to understand what its growing user base is with its chatbot. He found a surprising amount of personal use and a “gender gap” of fence among its frequent users.

In a Nber working document written by the OPENAI economic research team and Harvard economist, David Deming, the researchers found that around 80% of all Chatgpt uses are one of the three categories: “Practical advice”, “research of information” and “writing”. The “practical advice”, which the study revealed to be the most common use, includes things like “tutoring and teaching, practical advice on a variety of subjects and creative ideas”, while “finding information” is considered a substitute for traditional research. “Writing” included the automated creation of emails, documents and other communications, as well as the editing and translation of the text.

Writing was also the most common use of work, according to the study, representing 40% of work -related messages in June 2025, compared to only 4.2% of messages related to computer programming – it therefore seems that coding with chatgpt is not so common.

In particular, the use of work for chatgpt seems to constitute a part of narrowing of the way people interact with the chatbot. In June 2024, around 47% of the interactions that users had with the chatbot were linked to work. This has decreased to only 27%, which occurs, because other research shows that companies cannot understand how to generate a sort of significant yield of their AI investments. Meanwhile, work -related interactions increased from 53% to 73%.

While users apparently spend more time with Chatgpt in their personal time, OpenAi’s research has revealed that a “fairly small share” of messages with the chatbot was users looking for virtual company or to talk about socio-emotional problems. The company said that around 2% of all messages were people using Chatgpt as therapist or friend, and only 0.4% of people spoke to the chatbot of personal relationships and reflections, although it is interesting to see if users who engage with a chatbot generates more messages and if there is a more sticky commitment.

For what it is worth, other researchers seem to believe that this use is much more common than these figures suggest. Common sense media, for example, found that around one in three teenagers use AI chatbots for social interaction and relationships. Another study revealed that around half of all adult users used a chatbot for “psychological support” last year. The figure of adolescents is particularly to be noted, given that Openai’s research has found that its user base is failure. The NEBR study revealed only 46% of messages from users identified as between 18 and 25 years old (it also excluded users under the age of 18). These users are also more likely to use Chatgpt for personal use, as work -related messages increase with age.

The study also revealed that there are an increasing number of women using Chatppt, which initially had a base of male predominance users. The company claims that the number of users of “male first name” rose from around 80% in 2022 to 48% in June 2025, with “female names” to reach parity.

A study of the study which can give you a break, depending on the amount of technology of your confidence: OpenAi used AI to classify all the messages it has analyzed. So, if you are skeptical, there is an asterisk that you can put next to the figures.