AI apps top 1 billion users as ChatGPT overtakes X

There are now more than 1 billion users of standalone AI apps like ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini, according to a new report.

The milestone comes less than three years after OpenAI released ChatGPT, which became the fastest growing app in history when it launched in November 2022.

“AI is ‘crossing the chasm’, spreading from early adopters into the mass market,” noted the Digital 2026 report, which was carried out by consumer intelligence firm Meltwater and the creative agency We Are Social.

The 700-page report noted that the trend was having a ripple effect across the rest of the internet, with the number of people using conventional search engines now on the decline.

“AI increasingly enables users to answer different kinds of questions, and satisfy a much broader range of needs than they could with search engines alone,” said data analyst Simon Kemp.

AI adoption rates have largely been driven by ChatGPT, which has around 800 million users according to OpenAI boss Sam Altman.

This is up from around 250 million users this time last year, and puts it ahead of Elon Musk’s X, which has around 586 million users according to figures gathered by Statista

Researchers from OpenAI, Duke University and Harvard University noted in a paper last month that around 10 per cent of the world’s adult population now uses ChatGPT.

“For a new technology, this speed of global diffusion has no precedent,” they wrote.

A separate report from Pew Research Center published on Wednesday found the more people are concerned about artificial intelligence than excited.

The survey, which took in views from more than 28,000 people across 25 countries, revealed that only 16 per cent of people are more excited than concerned about the technology.

“Concerns about AI are especially common in the United States, Italy, Australia, Brazil and Greece, where about half of adults say they are more concerned than excited,” the report’s authors wrote.

“The survey also finds a strong correlation between a country’s income – as measured by gross domestic product per capita – and awareness of AI. People in higher-income nations tend to have heard more about AI than those in less wealthy economies.”