Giant language fashions largely stay black bins by way of what is going on inside them to provide the outputs that they do. They’ve additionally been a little bit of a black field by way of who’s utilizing them and what they’re doing with them. OpenAI, with some assist from the Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis (NBER), set out to determine what precisely its rising consumer base is getting as much as with its chatbot. It discovered a shocking quantity of non-public use and a closing “gender hole” amongst its frequent customers.
In an NBER working paper authored by the OpenAI Financial Analysis crew and Harvard economist David Deming, the researchers discovered that about 80% of all ChatGPT utilization falls below certainly one of three classes: “Sensible Steering,” “Searching for Data,” and “Writing.” “Sensible steerage,” which the examine discovered to be the most typical utilization, consists of issues like “tutoring and instructing, how-to recommendation about quite a lot of matters, and artistic ideation,” whereas “searching for data” is considered as an alternative to conventional search. “Writing” included the automated creation of emails, paperwork, and different communications, in addition to modifying and translating textual content.
Writing was additionally the most typical work-related use case, per the examine, accounting for 40% of work-related messages in June 2025, in comparison with simply 4.2% of messages associated to laptop programming—so it appears coding with ChatGPT just isn’t that widespread.
Notably, work utilization for ChatGPT seems to make up a shrinking share of how persons are interacting with the chatbot. In June 2024, about 47% of interactions customers had with the chatbot had been work-related. That has shrunk to only 27%, which comes as different analysis reveals firms largely failing to determine easy methods to generate any form of significant return from their AI investments. In the meantime, non-work-related interactions have jumped from 53% to 73%.
Whereas customers are apparently spending extra time with ChatGPT of their private time, OpenAI’s analysis discovered {that a} “pretty small” share of messages with the chatbot had been customers searching for digital companionship or speaking about social-emotional points. The corporate claimed that about 2% of all messages had been individuals utilizing ChatGPT as a therapist or pal, and simply 0.4% of individuals talked to the chatbot about relationships and private reflections—although it’d be fascinating to see if customers who have interaction with a chatbot this manner generate extra messages and if there may be stickier engagement.
For what it’s price, different researchers appear to imagine that this utilization is way extra widespread than these numbers may recommend. Widespread Sense Media, as an example, discovered that about one in three teenagers use AI chatbots for social interplay and relationships. One other examine discovered that about half of all grownup customers have used a chatbot for “psychological assist” within the final yr. The teenager determine is especially of be aware, contemplating OpenAI’s analysis did discover its userbase skews younger. The NEBR examine discovered 46% of the messages got here from customers recognized as being between the ages of 18 and 25 (it additionally excluded customers below the age of 18). These customers are additionally extra doubtless to make use of ChatGPT for private use, as work-related messages enhance with age.
The examine additionally discovered that there’s a rising variety of girls utilizing ChatGPT, which initially had a really male-dominated consumer base. The corporate claims that the variety of “masculine first title” customers has declined from about 80% in 2022 to 48% in June 2025, with “usually female names” rising to achieve parity.
One caveat concerning the examine which will provide you with pause, relying on how a lot you belief expertise: OpenAI used AI to categorize the entire messages it analyzed. So should you’re skeptical, there’s an asterisk you’ll be able to put subsequent to the figures.
