OpenAI has released a comprehensive 64-page report based on over 1.5 million chat messages from about 130,000 users, offering new insights into how people are using ChatGPT. The study, conducted by OpenAI’s economic research team and published as a working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research, is the largest of its kind to date. It covers messages sent between May 2024 and July 2025 and focuses on users with consumer plans. Here are three key findings. First, women now make up a slight majority of active ChatGPT users. Among users whose names could be categorized as masculine or feminine, 52% had feminine names by July 2025. This marks a significant shift from late 2022, when around 80% of users had masculine names. The report also notes differences in usage patterns: users with feminine names were more likely to use ChatGPT for writing assistance and practical guidance, while those with masculine names leaned toward technical help, information-seeking, and multimedia-related tasks. Second, young people are the dominant users of ChatGPT. Nearly half of all messages—46%—came from users aged 18 to 25. While users under 18 were excluded from the study, the data shows that young adults are driving adoption. However, they are less likely than other age groups to use the tool for work. Only 22.5% of messages from users aged 18 to 25 were work-related, lower than every other age group except those 66 and older, who had a 16.1% work-related message rate. In contrast, users aged 36 to 45 had the highest work-related usage at 31.4%. Third, users are primarily turning to ChatGPT for advice and information rather than task execution. The study classified 49% of messages as “asking,” which includes seeking facts, advice, or guidance. Another 40% were labeled “doing,” meaning users asked the chatbot to perform actions like drafting emails, creating lists, or extracting data. Only 11% were classified as “expression,” where users shared thoughts or emotions without seeking information. Among consumer users, 70% of interactions were non-work-related, and even among those using ChatGPT for work, 56% of messages were task-oriented. Overall, the findings suggest that ChatGPT is being used more as a conversational assistant and research tool than a productivity automation engine.