OpenAI's ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry said ChatGPT now has about 1.2 billion weekly active users and that its volume of search-like queries is roughly 20% of Google's. Fry spoke in a fireside chat at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York, as reported by Big Technology's Alex Kantrowitz. The Verge carried the same company figures.
These numbers come from OpenAI. The reports cited here do not include an independent audit of weekly actives, of Google's query volume, or of how OpenAI classified "search-like" traffic.
Key Facts
| Claim (OpenAI / Fry) | Figure | Independent check |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly active users | 1.0B → 1.2B in about 60 days (+200M) | Not independently verified in cited reports |
| Search-like query volume | About one-fifth / 20% of Google's | Not independently verified; Fry did not name Google's data source (The Verge) |
| What counts as a search | Each user question that triggers a web search | Company definition |
| Voice (dictation + voice mode) | 250 million combined weekly active users | Company disclosure |
| Images created | About 1.5 billion per week | Company disclosure |
Fry said search-like use means queries that need up-to-date information of the kind people once took to a traditional search engine, such as looking up a person, place, finance, or health topic. When Kantrowitz asked whether every turn in a long chat counts, Fry said each question that causes ChatGPT to search the web counts as a search.
Background
ChatGPT added browsing and web search after launch, when the product still often refused questions past its training cutoff. Fry, a former Google employee per the Big Technology interview, framed the 20% comparison as growth over about a year and a half of search-capable ChatGPT.
The Verge places the claim against Microsoft Bing's much smaller search share cited in Google's 2023 antitrust trial, and notes Fry did not specify how OpenAI measured Google's volume. IT Home summarized the 20% figure for Chinese readers; the English interview remains the primary account of Fry's wording.
Fry also said voice use has become habitual for many of the 250 million weekly voice users, and that image generation reaches about 1.5 billion images a week. Those figures sit beside the headline metrics and are likewise company-reported.
What We Don't Know Yet
- OpenAI has not published the Google query denominator or the measurement window for the 20% claim.
- No third-party panel or regulator report in the sources used here confirms the 1.2 billion WAU or the search ratio.
- How much of ChatGPT's web retrieval runs through Bing, OpenAI's own index, or other paths is not settled in these reports.
- Whether Google search volume is rising or falling in absolute terms alongside ChatGPT's growth is outside the disclosures Fry gave.
Sources
- Big Technology: OpenAI on ChatGPT search vs Google (interview / primary account of Fry's remarks)
- The Verge: ChatGPT catching up to Google in search
- IT之家：ChatGPT 搜索量约达谷歌两成（中文参照）