TWO YEARS LATER, CHATGPT REACHES 200 MILLION WEEKLY USERS, TRANSFORMS INDUSTRY

WASHINGTON D.C. - Two years since its release, OpenAI's flagship chatbot ChatGPT has doubled its user base to over 200 million weekly users, sending shockwaves through the tech industry.

Since its launch in February 2022, ChatGPT's influence has been seen across various sectors. The platform has turbocharged global investment in generative AI, with funding in the space growing fivefold last year alone. Big tech companies on the S&P 500 have benefited from the growth, seeing a 30% gain since January 2022, compared to only 15% for small-cap companies.

Consulting firms are also feeling the effects of ChatGPT's transformative power. Boston Consulting Group generates nearly a fifth of its revenue from AI, with much of that work involving advising clients on generative AI. McKinsey expects almost 40% of its work now comes from AI, with an increasing portion moving to generative AI.

Smaller companies face challenges in keeping up with larger players, relying on existing large language models or waiting for the next major developer tool release. However, young developers remain optimistic that ChatGPT will level the playing field.

"Though you still have your Big Tech companies around, they're much more vulnerable because the bleeding edge of AI has basically been democratized," said Bryan Chiang, a recent Stanford graduate who built RizzGPT.

ChatGPT's impact on regular users is also significant. In August, it reached its 200 million weekly active users, doubling the previous fall's figures. A new search feature that provides links to relevant web sources when asked a question has introduced a serious threat to Google's dominance.

In September, OpenAI previewed o1, a series of AI models designed to spend more time thinking before responding. ChatGPT Plus and Team users can access the models in ChatGPT, with users hoping for a full version release to the public in the coming year.

When asked what age means to it, the AI replied: "Age, to me, is an interesting concept — it's a way of measuring the passage of time, but it doesn't define who someone is or what they're capable of."