ChatGPT reaches 1 billion weekly users as OpenAI eyes IPO

OpenAI’s suite of products, led by ChatGPT, has officially crossed 1 billion weekly active users. The company confirmed the figure on September 8, 2026, based on a data snapshot from mid-August. To put that in perspective, only a handful of products in history have ever commanded that kind of recurring engagement: think Google Search, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The growth curve is impressive, but it’s bending OpenAI reported 400 million weekly users back in February 2025. By late 2025, that figure had roughly doubled to around 800 million. By February 2026, it climbed to 900 million. And now, mid-August 2026, it sits north of a billion. OpenAI had originally set an internal target of reaching 1 billion weekly users by the end of 2025. It missed that mark by about seven months. On the mobile side, the ChatGPT app hit 1 billion monthly active users by May 2026, a milestone that earned it the title of fastest app ever to reach that benchmark, according to independent tracking from Sensor Tower. For context, TikTok, the previous speed record holder, took roughly four years after its global launch to reach the same number. The competitive landscape is getting crowded OpenAI isn’t...