OpenAI study: most ChatGPT users are women, and they don’t use it for work

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has released the first detailed study of what its millions of users do with the viral chatbot and who they actually are. Here are the results.

America’s AI industry has traditionally been quite male. Unsurprisingly, when OpenAI hit the headlines in late 2022, the study found that around 80% of the app’s users had “typically masculine” first names.

However, as ChatGPT has gained massive popularity and global reach, the numbers have flipped. In June this year, 52% of the chatbot users had feminine names.

Indeed, most users are now women. Plus, the user base is dominated by young people, with nearly half of the conversations the study analyzed from people aged 18 to 25.

In a sign that ChatGPT is not some niche AI tool anymore, researchers also found that the majority of queries were not work-related. This isn’t surprising as ChatGPT is now used weekly by around 10% of the world’s adult population.

“We find steady growth in work-related messages but even faster growth in non-work-related messages, which have grown from 53% to more than 70% of all usage. Work usage is more common for educated users in highly-paid professional occupations,” said the study.

To OpenAI, the findings of the study show widening adoption of the tool, and it “underscores” the firm’s “belief that access to AI should be treated as a basic right – a technology that people can access to unlock their potential and shape their own future.”

The conclusions of the study are based on chat logs from 1.5 million of ChatGPT users between May 2024 and June 2025. The biggest chat category, at 28.3% of all chats, was “practical guidance” – seeking how-to advice, help with homework, or tips on cooking and working out.

Writing dominates work-related tasks, highlighting chatbots’ ability to generate digital outputs compared to traditional search engines.

Patterns of use can also be thought of in terms of Asking, Doing, and Expressing, OpenAI said. About half of messages (49%) are “Asking,” a growing and highly rated category that shows people value ChatGPT most as an advisor rather than only for task completion.

Writing dominates work-related tasks, highlighting chatbots’ ability to generate digital outputs compared to traditional search engines – even though some would, of course, call this cheating.

Computer programming and self-expression both represent relatively small shares of use.

“A key way that value is created is through decision support: ChatGPT helps improve judgment and productivity, especially in knowledge-intensive jobs. And as people discover these and other benefits, usage deepens,” said OpenAI.

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