More than 20% of internet users utilize generative AI

July 5, 2023 (New York, NY) – Generative AI and specifically ChatGPT usage will grow by triple-digits this year, according to Insider Intelligence’s inaugural forecast on the topic. While growth will slow over the next few years, usage of generative AI will surpass several milestones throughout the forecast period.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT will see usage in the US skyrocket from 6.3 million last year to 61.5 million in 2023, a leap of 882.0%. Growth will slow to double-digits in 2024. Usage will surpass several milestones, beginning this year with more than 20% of internet users on the platform, with that figure swelling to one-quarter next year. By 2025, more than one-quarter of the US population (25.5%) will be a user.

“Generative AI is going to radically alter the search landscape,” said Peter Newman, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Generative AI-powered search will change how consumers get information and how businesses and brands advertise to them. It will require new formats and relationships to place ads, kicking off a race to get into generated responses that will forever change SEO.”

ChatGPT is, by far, the most popular generative AI platform. This year, 79.0% of generative AI users will use ChatGPT. Importantly, the platform is losing share slowly, as competitors enter the market. By 2025, its share of users will drop to 75.2%.

ChatGPT is the main growth driver of generative AI usage in the US. The category as a whole will grow 894.4% this year to 77.8 million users. Growth will slow to double-digits next year, when it will surpass 100 million users.

“The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 brought generative AI into the mainstream and also shook some of the leading tech companies,” said Yory Wurmser, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Most had generative AI initiatives in development, but they’ve spent the last half year rushing these into limited releases, including Google Bard, Microsoft Bing, and Meta’s open-source foundational model LLaMA. OpenAI itself has created plugins and APIs for ChatGPT. That’s increased the number of generative AI users nearly tenfold this year compared to last.”

This year, more than 20% of the US population will use a generative AI platform at least once a month. That share will surpass one-third of the population by 2025. When you just look at US internet users, more than one-quarter will use a platform this year with that share nearly hitting one-third next year.

“We expect the growth of users to continue, largely due to the integration of generative AI in work,” Wursmer said. “Most cloud platforms have partnered with AI companies to help businesses customize generative models for their own purposes.”

Breaking out usage by age, Americans between 25 and 34 are the heaviest users, closely followed by 35- to 44-year-olds. Those between 18 and 24 are the third-biggest user group, followed closely by 45- to 54-year-olds.

“Generative AI systems are going to be used by a broad range of people but most notably by workers in the course of their jobs, across different roles and industries,” Newman said. “They will be utilized especially by less experienced workers, tasked with overseeing large amounts of semi-automated processes. We expect AI tools to quickly move beyond just the tech-savvy and soon to be used by a huge number of workers. For younger users, these tools are proliferating across education with students prompting generative AI to distill topics to their key points or, more problematically, completing assignments for them.”

* internet users of any age who enter a prompt into a generative AI system via any device at least once per month

** Generative AI systems interpret user input to output text or media. Examples include ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Stable Diffusion.

Methodology

Insider Intelligence forecasts and estimates are based on our proprietary analysis, and include both quantitative and qualitative data curated from public companies, government agencies, research and media firms, and interviews with expert executives in relevant fields. We regularly re-evaluate available data to ensure our forecasts reflect the latest business and economic  developments and trends.

About Insider Intelligence

Insider Intelligence is a leading research provider focused on digital transformation. We empower professionals with actionable data, insights, and analysis to make informed decisions in a digital world. Formed as a merger of eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence in 2020, we produce nearly 200 forecasts, 300 reports, 7,000 charts, and 1,500 newsletters across the Advertising, Media, and Marketing; Financial Services; Healthcare; and Retail and Ecommerce industries. Insider Intelligence is a division of Axel Springer S.E.