How ChatGPT adoption broadened in early 2026

How ChatGPT adoption broadened in early 2026 | OpenAI

May 11, 2026

Q1 data shows consumer adoption growth across inferred gender, age, and geography.

In the first quarter of 2026, consumer ChatGPT growth broadened across age groups, continued to rise among users with typically feminine names, and deepened in more countries.

This analysis covers the messages sent on ChatGPT consumer plans (Free, Go, Plus, and Pro). Because it excludes Codex and ChatGPT enterprise and education products, it understates total workplace and educational usage.

ChatGPT usage broadened beyond early adopters

Users with typically feminine names represented a growing share of ChatGPT usage this quarter after reaching approximate parity last year. These users account for over half of users for whom we’re able to infer gender (see gender inference methodology here⁠).

The share of users with typically feminine names increased in early 2026

Series

The number of messages from all age groups increased with ChatGPT’s overall growth⁠. In Q1, users under the age of 35 still accounted for the largest share of total messages, but messages from users over 35 gained share this quarter.

The share of older users grew in early 2026

Age group

ChatGPT use spread beyond the largest and most established markets

We rank countries⁠ by the number of messages sent per capita to track relative country-level usage patterns. Many of the largest gains in rank this quarter came from countries outside the most established markets. The 10 fastest-rising countries point to a broadening pattern of adoption across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, and Africa. These changes reflect relative movement, not total usage.

Country2025Q4 Rank2026Q1 RankChange

Dominican Republic53 44+9

Haiti91 82+9

Japan43 35+8

Mexico60 54+6

Tanzania102 96+6

Brazil47 42+5

Costa Rica38 33+5

Myanmar99 94+5

Papua New Guinea109 104+5

Austria15 11+4

Workplace use evolved

Within work-related usage on consumer plans, creating written and visual materials continued to lead, but decreased over time while more specialized tasks became more popular. This analysis excludes Codex usage, which is likely shifting technical work toward coding agents.

The fastest-growing workplace tasks included content creation, health-related documentation, and information retrieval. These trends point to expanding adoption across professions or industries.

Overall, 2026Q1 data suggests ChatGPT is becoming a more mainstream tool: used by a broader mix of people, in more countries, and for increasingly recurring tasks. It reflects wider adoption and more embedded use.

During the first quarter, the balance between work-related and non-work use on consumer accounts continued in line with past trends. Users appeared to leverage repeatable use cases.

Stay engaged

OpenAI Signals is an ongoing effort to ensure that researchers and policymakers have the best data at their fingertips to understand how AI is and will impact the economy.

* If you’re a researcherinterested in leveraging ChatGPT usage data, download it for your own research and exploration here⁠.

* If you’re interested in how enterprises use AI, you can find the data here⁠.

* If you want to stay up-to-date on data releases, subscribe for updates here⁠.