How Widespread Is ChatGPT Usage?

Generative AI, especially the products released or announced by tech corporations like Microsoft, Alphabet or Meta and the current forerunner in the field, OpenAI, has attracted widespread attention and investments in the billions over the past two years. However, as a recent survey by YouGov conducted for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggests, publicity and venture capital influx doesn't translate into actual usage.

Data from the survey conducted in six countries in March and April of 2024 shows that even respondents in the youngest age group, ranging from 18 to 24 years old, are not using OpenAI's flagship product ChatGPT regularly. Nine percent claimed to use it daily, while an additional 18 percent use it at least once a week. Monthly users make up 12 percent of all respondents, while 17 percent used it once or twice. This shows that, at least among survey participants, 44 percent have never used ChatGPT even once.

The difference between casual, heavy and no usage is more pronounced in older age brackets. While 84 percent of respondents over the age of 55 have never used OpenAI's chatbot, which produces answers sourced from its training material by calculating the statistical probability of every next word in a sentence, between 13 and 15 percent of the remaining age groups have at least used it once or twice. Heavy usage, as in at least weekly consultation of ChatGPT, drops from 19 percent for 25- to 34-year-olds to nine percent for 45- to 54-year-olds.

While every major tech corporation is working on their version of a large language model, companies like Microsoft and most recently Apple also partnered with the Sam Altman-led OpenAI to enhance their products. According to data from CB Insights, OpenAI has recently become the world's third-highest-valued unicorn, a moniker describing private companies with a market valuation of more than $1 billion, at $80 billion. It trails behind Chinese tech company ByteDance ($225 billion) and Elon Musk's SpaceX ($150 billion).