Slack message: Sam Altman tells staff that ChatGPT is “back to exceeding 10% monthly growth”, and OpenAI plans to release “an updated Chat model” this week
It also fits OpenAI's longer-standing ambition to make ChatGPT a personal assistant for work. Reported growth gives the company more incentive to turn model improvements into regular product releases.
First-order effects
OpenAI can put the updated chat experience in front of a growing ChatGPT audience immediately, making retention and engagement the near-term test of the release.
The reported return to greater-than-10% monthly growth strengthens the case for prioritizing ChatGPT product development alongside OpenAI's enterprise strategy.
Second-order effects
Rival AI assistants face added pressure to match OpenAI's release cadence and to distinguish their chat products through workflow integration, controls, or specialized use cases.
A larger, faster-growing ChatGPT audience raises the value of distribution to businesses and developers that build around the assistant, while increasing the importance of product changes that preserve user trust and habits.
Third-order effects
If sustained, the pattern reinforces chat interfaces as a primary software surface: model advances are increasingly packaged as recurring consumer and workplace product updates rather than isolated research milestones.
Competition may shift further from headline model capability toward who can retain users through a dependable assistant experience and embed it in daily work.
The trend: AI companies are turning frontier-model progress into a continuous assistant-product cycle, using growth and frequent updates to compete for the default work interface.
More than 1 million people downloaded Codex App in the first week. 60+% growth in overall Codex user last week! We'll keep Codex available to Free/Go users after this promotion; we may have to reduce limits there but we want everyone to be able to try Codex and start building.
Scoop w/ @Kr00ney: - ChatGPT is back to exceeding 10% monthly growth - OpenAI aiming to launch a new model this week - Codex grew ~50% in a week - OpenAI will begin testing ads w/in ChatGPT today - Fundraising talks to accelerate over next two weeks https://www.cnbc.com/...
chatgpt has been at 800m+ weekly actives since october. gotta wonder if they stalled out or are just saving for 1bn. but it's been a while! Took from August to october 2025 to go from 700m to 800m for example [embedded post]
Scoop w/ @kr00ney.bsky.social: — ChatGPT is back to exceeding 10% monthly growth — OpenAI aiming to launch a new model this week — Codex grew ~50% in a week — OpenAI will begin testing ads w/in ChatGPT today — Fundraising talks to accelerate over next two weeks …