Introduction: Why ChatGPT Usage Data Matters for Brands

OpenAI, in collaboration with researches from Duke University and Havard University, has published one of the most comprehensive studies to date on how people actually use ChatGPT.
For the first time, we have data that quantifies how many of the 700 million weekly users and the 18 billion weekly messages they send are relevant for brands, marketers, and business leaders.

If you’ve been wondering whether your audience is on ChatGPT, this report leaves little doubt.

Nearly Half of ChatGPT Queries Are About Guidance and Information

According to the study, 49.6% of searches are related to “Practical Guidance” or “Seeking Information.”

That means when people come to ChatGPT, they’re not just experimenting, they’re actively looking for answers and solutions.

Even more interesting: these two categories, plus Writing, account for roughly 77% of all usage. The biggest growth came from “Seeking Information,” which jumped from 14% to 24% year-over-year, while “Practical Guidance” held steady at ~29%. “Writing” declined from ~36% to ~24%, suggesting users are leaning less on ChatGPT to generate long-form prose and more on it as a decision-support tool.

👉 For marketers, that means optimizing content for guidance and information lookups (FAQs, comparisons, trade-offs, and criteria) not just long blog posts.

ChatGPT at Work: Who Uses It and How Professionals Rely on It

The study shows that work usage is most common among educated users in well-paid professional occupations.

In work settings, “Writing” actually dominates, representing about 40% of usage. But here’s the nuance: nearly two-thirds of this writing is not net-new content. Instead, it’s editing or transforming text, things like summarizing, translating, or critiquing drafts.

That means if you want your brand to appear in workflows, you need to publish assets that are easy for ChatGPT to re-use and transform: structured definitions, clean tables, checklists, and well-organized text.

Put differently: ChatGPT is already embedded in the workflows of decision-makers. The content they find shapes what they write, share, and decide.

Purchasable Products on ChatGPT: Why Only 2.1% of Queries Are Commerce-Related

Compared to Google, where roughly 14% of searches are commerce-related, ChatGPT’s share seems small at just 2.1%.

But here’s the catch: the lower share isn’t just about behavior, a large part of it can likely be explained by a different taxonomy. On Google, many brand-related queries are counted as product searches, even when they’re really just navigational (like typing “Nike” to open nike.com). That kind of intent doesn’t exist on ChatGPT, which makes a direct percentage comparison misleading.

Even at 2.1%, that still equals 378 million product or service inquiries per week. For context: that’s larger than the total search volume of many established e-commerce platforms.

👉 The opportunity: publish clean specs, transparent pricing, and decision criteria that the model can easily surface in side-by-side comparisons.

Asking vs. Doing vs. Expressing: How People Use ChatGPT in 2025

One of the most insightful patterns in the study is how people actually “use” ChatGPT:

• Asking (49%): Questions, decision support, comparisons, trade-offs.

• Doing (40%): Executing tasks, coding, workflows.

• Expressing (11%): Creative writing, personal reflection.

By June 2025, “Asking” had grown to ~52%, and these queries are rated higher quality than “Doing.”

This shift shows users increasingly treat ChatGPT as a decision-support system, not just an automation engine. And it confirms once again how ChatGPT is directly challenging one of Google’s core territories: answering questions and guiding decisions. Where Google offers a ranked list of links, ChatGPT delivers a single synthesized answer, changing how people search and who gets visibility.

👉 To stay relevant here, brands need to understand their visibility in AI-driven conversations and the factors that shape it, so they can influence how ChatGPT answers questions like “Which should I choose?” or “How do I decide between X and Y?”

Writing With ChatGPT: Still One of the Most Popular Use Cases

While its share has declined, 28.1% of ChatGPT usage is still dedicated to writing.

This includes:

• Drafting and refining emails

• Preparing presentations

• Writing marketing content and blog posts (hello backlinks 👀)

• Creating decision-making slides

For brands, this is powerful: if your company is associated with the right themes, your messaging gets folded into what people write, share, and send.

Key Takeaway: Why Your Audience Is Already on ChatGPT

The study mostly compares relative shares, but the absolute numbers are staggering.

• 800 million weekly users

• 18 billion weekly messages

• 378 million product/service purchase related messages per week

ChatGPT has already crossed the line from novelty tool to mainstream platform, and the numbers are still growing across all demographics.

For marketers and business leaders, the takeaway is simple: your audience is already here.

The question is whether your brand is visible enough to be part of the answers they see.