OpenAI estimates ~0.07% of ChatGPT's weekly active users “indicate possible signs of mental health emergencies” like mania, and details its safety improvements
Millions use ChatGPT like a therapist, but that's about to change Viktor Eriksson / PCWorld : Over 1 million ChatGPT users mention suicidal intent every week BBC : ChatGPT shares data on how many users exhibit psychosis or suicidal thoughts Rachel Curry / Observer : Chatbots Like ChatGPT Are Fueling Mental Health Crises—What Can Be Done? Frank Landymore / Futurism : OpenAI Data Finds Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users Might Be Suffering Mental Health Crises Ronil Thakkar / KnowTechie : Over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly Matthias Bastian / The Decoder : OpenAI tightens ChatGPT safeguards for mental health conversations Markus Kasanmascheff / WinBuzzer : OpenAI Admits Over a Million Users Discuss Suicide Weekly With ChatGPT, Rolls Out Safety Update Arden Dier / Newser : In a Week, 1.2M ChatGPT Users Show Suicidal Intent Karthik Mudaliar / Neowin : OpenAI says GPT-5 can recognize and respond to mental health crises with clinical precision The Indian Express : More than a million ChatGPT users showed signs of suicidal thoughts, OpenAI study reveals Juan Vasquez / WebProNews : OpenAI Enhances ChatGPT for Empathetic Mental Health Support X: @openai : Earlier this month, we updated GPT-5 with the help of 170+ mental health experts to improve how ChatGPT responds in sensitive moments—reducing the cases where it falls short by 65-80%. https://openai.com/... Prakash / @8teapi : this was a major ask from the Attorneys General of California and Delaware to approve the conversion to for profit. so i would guess it's been discussed with them. path to IPO next year Johannes Heidecke / @joheidecke : 🧵Today we're sharing more details about improvements of the default GPT-5 model in responding to sensitive conversations around potential mental health emergencies and emotional reliance. These changes reflect the careful work of many teams within OpenAI and close consultation Johannes Heidecke / @joheidecke : Alongside this update, we're rolling out improvements to the Model Spec to make some of our longstanding goals more explicit: [link] Defining what “ideal behavior” looks like in these settings is a complex and nuanced task. We found that experts agree with each other about the boundary of desired and undesired behavior in about 70% of cases. Johannes Heidecke / @joheidecke : Three distinct methods for measuring improvements show clear progress of how our model responds to users in distress. (1) In production traffic, we observe a 65-80% reduction of responses that don't meet our desired behavior. [image] Johannes Heidecke / @joheidecke : We defined three areas where model responses matter most: (1) psychosis, mania and other mental health emergencies; (2) self-harm and suicide; and (3) emotional reliance. We created and refined detailed taxonomies to guide how ChatGPT should behave in sensitive conversations... Ivan Mehta / @indianidle : Stats in this post are wild. “our initial analysis estimates that around 0.15% of users active in a given week have conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning” That equates to possibly 1.2 million users a week if we count 800 million WAUs. Marvin von Hagen / @marvinvonhagen : “gpt-5-oct-3” this gotta be a joke. what happened to YYYY-MM-DD? is it 2023 again [image] Fidji Simo / @fidjissimo : We're very focused on making GPT-5 safer, and continue to make a lot of progress: https://openai.com/... LinkedIn: Andrea V. : Over the past year, I led OpenAI's research on a question with almost no established precedents: how should models respond when confronted … Bluesky: Case / @case.cryptoanarchy.network : ChatGPT has over 800 million users. Given the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and psychotic disorders among the global population, I don't think these numbers are related to or caused by LLM usage. — techcrunch.com/2025/10/27/o... Ethan Mollick / @emollick : From this new post by 0.15% of users (something like 9M people given public numbers) show signs of suicidal intent in their ChatGPT chats each week — But there seems to be progress in making ChatGPT respond appropriately to mental health issues. openai.com/index/streng... [image] Rev. Poppy Haze / @poppyhaze : the system works as intended, Altman's gonna sell the “makes you crazy” dial to the politicians, anytime they want to trigger a crisis, they just turn it to “shoot up a...” and wait — www.wired.com/story/chatgp... [image] Laurie Voss / @seldo.com : In any given week, 560,000 ChatGPT users exhibit “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania”. — openai.com/index/streng... Erin Casali / @folletto : 0.07% = 560,000 — 0.07%: small until you factor in their weekly active users. — Apparently their analysis also says that the new guardrails in place reduce undesired responses by 39%. — So... 340,000 people having a conversation with ChatGPT that fails managing severe mental health symptoms. … Cristiano Lima-Strong / @viacristiano : Tech companies often use statistics about the prevalence of content on their sites to make things seem small. This article is a good reminder that a small % can still be a helluvalot techcrunch.com/2025/10/27/o... M. C. Flux PhD / @fluxinflux : This is not a scientific report. It is a self congratulatory press release around how much better ChatGPT-5 is at responding to mental health concerns (as defined by OpenAI). — OpenAI is neither a research nor clinical institution. It is a company trying to build a financially successful product. M. C. Flux PhD / @fluxinflux : Scientists and clinicians don't report statistics for mental health concerns in terms of weekly levels. Generally these data are reported as yearly statistics, which makes comparison really challenging. But these numbers aren't definitely troubling. Damon Beres / @damonberes.com : According to OpenAI's own data, in a given week, millions of people “have conversations [with ChatGPT] that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent” Edith / @edithcharles : What are the chances, realistically, that OpenAI aren't doing this to vulnerable people on purpose? Lizzie O'Leary / @lizzieohreally : The fact that these are the numbers the company will put on the record ... www.wired.com/story/chatgp... Bénédicte C / @benecal : That externality we caused? Individuals should pay for it. — Move fast and destroy people. — These assholes are causing untold damage and barely taking responsibility. — www.wired.com/story/chatgp... Brian Barrett / @brbarrett : The sheer volume of people showing signs of mania, psychosis, and suicidal ideation each and every week on ChatGPT is staggering, alarming, awful, all of it. from @lmatsakis.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/chatgp... Mastodon: Miguel Afonso Caetano / @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org : Society is really turned upside down when people feel so lonely that they create deep emotional attachments to chatbots. They don't have what you used to call a “self”, so they outsource their need for a self to a non-human entity. If they had at least one self, they could engage into internal dialogue with it. … Ricky Mondello / @rmondello@hachyderm.io : Ed feeling pretty lucky this news dropped today to distract folks from his impropriety. https://www.wired.com/... Forums: r/ABoringDystopia : OpenAI says over 1 million people a week talk to ChatGPT about suicide r/accelerate : OpenAI says over 1 million people a week talk to ChatGPT about suicide r/singularity : OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly r/BetterOffline : OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly r/artificial : OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly r/ChatGPT : OpenAI says over 500,000 ChatGPT Users show signs of manic or psychotic crisis every week r/HumanAIDiscourse : OpenAI now says over 500,000 ChatGPT users may show signs of manic or psychotic crisis EVERY WEEK r/ArtificialSentience : OpenAI now says over 550,000 ChatGPT users may be in crisis every week r/cogsuckers : Strengthening ChatGPT's responses in sensitive conversations r/technology : OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly r/OpenAI : OpenAI estimates that around 0.07% of ChatGPT users active in a week show “severe mental health symptoms” like mania, and details its safety improvements r/MyBoyfriendIsAI : Strengthening ChatGPT's responses in sensitive conversations r/technology : OpenAI Says Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users May Show Signs of Manic or Psychotic Crisis Every Week r/TrueReddit : Here's How Many People May Use ChatGPT During a Mental Health Crisis Each Week r/OpenAI : Here's How Many People May Use ChatGPT During a Mental Health Crisis Each Week r/technews : Here's How Many People May Use ChatGPT During a Mental Health Crisis Each Week BeauHD / Slashdot : OpenAI Says Over a Million People Talk To ChatGPT About Suicide Weekly
Context & Ripple Effects
ChatGPT’s reach had already expanded to more than 200 million weekly active users in OpenAI’s prior disclosure, making edge-case safety behavior consequential at consumer scale. The company is now attaching prevalence estimates to that exposure while updating GPT-5’s default behavior and ChatGPT’s guardrails for sensitive conversations.
This follows sustained evidence that people use chatbots as a mental-health supplement or substitute, drawn by constant availability and low friction despite expert concerns about the missing human relationship. The new disclosure turns a largely qualitative risk debate into an operational safety issue for a mass-market assistant.
First-order effects
- OpenAI must apply its updated GPT-5 responses and ChatGPT guardrails to conversations that may involve psychosis, mania, or suicidal intent, affecting how the product handles users in acute distress.
- The company’s reported prevalence estimates make mental-health safety a measurable product-performance area rather than a general trust-and-safety claim.
Second-order effects
- Competing general-purpose assistants face stronger pressure to define, test, and communicate their own crisis-response behavior as users treat conversational AI as a source of emotional support.
- Mental-health providers and advocates gain a clearer basis to scrutinize where chatbot support ends and escalation to human care should begin, especially given earlier reports of users turning to chatbots in place of traditional services.
Third-order effects
- If major assistants continue to quantify and tune for these interactions, [[a:AI companion governance|AI companion governance]] will increasingly center on repeatable safety evaluation, disclosure, and product boundaries rather than broad assurances of helpfulness.
- The challenge is likely to intensify as conversational products become more companion-like—a shift anticipated in coverage of synthetic companions becoming a consumer-internet category—though prevalence estimates alone do not establish what interventions work best.
The trend: Mass-market AI assistants are moving from open-ended conversational products toward governed systems with explicit safeguards for emotionally high-risk use cases.