OpenAI’s active user count soars to 300 million people per week

After months of C-suite changes, tender offers and a soaring valuation, OpenAI has reached a new milestone: 300 million weekly active users.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed the new figure Wednesday at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit. A source familiar with the company told CNBC last week that the company’s weekly active user count was still at 250 million.

Over the next year, though, the company is reportedly targeting 1 billion active users.

It’s part of a serious growth plan for OpenAI, as the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence startup battles Amazon-backed Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI, the latter of which Altman said he views as a “fierce competitor” on Wednesday at DealBook. The company is also up against established tech giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon for a bigger slice of the generative AI market, which is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

OpenAI on Tuesday announced it had hired its first chief marketing officer, nabbing Kate Rouch from crypto company Coinbase — an indication that it plans to spend more on marketing to grow its user base. In October, OpenAI debuted a search feature within ChatGPT that positions it to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Perplexity and may attract more users who otherwise visited those sites to search the web.

Also at DealBook on Wednesday, Altman denied reports that the company had asked investors not to also invest in its competitors but said that those who decide to wouldn’t have access to OpenAI’s “information rights,” like the company’s roadmap and other materials.

OpenAI’s valuation has climbed to $157 billion in the two years since it launched ChatGPT, raising about $13 billion from Microsoft. The company closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October and received a $4 billion revolving line of credit. As of last week, OpenAI is allowing employees to sell about $1.5 billion worth of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank.