ChatGPT: a billion monthly app users despite souring public AI sentiment
ChatGPT: a billion monthly app users despite souring public AI sentiment
Publish Date: 2026-06-12 02:05:00
Source Domain: www.cnbc.com
Protesters gather with banners and placards outside the offices of Google Deepmind at a protest organized by PauseAI UK and other groups concerned in controlling the development of advanced Artificial Intelligence systems, in London on February 28, 2026. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP via Getty Images)
Justin Tallis | Afp | Getty Images
With college graduates jeering mentions of artificial intelligence at commencement speeches, and voices as disparate as the Pope and technology giant Anthropic warning of the risks of unmitigated AI development, public sentiment toward the technology has sobered considerably since its early euphoria.
Yet despite mounting public backlash, global AI usage has surged to record highs. OpenAI’s ChatGPT reached one billion monthly app users, or MAUs, in May, according to recent estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Other AI apps including Anthropic’s Claude made triple-digit year-over-year percentage gains in users, the data company said.
With its billion-MAU figure — achieved roughly 3.5 years after its November 2022 launch — ChatGPT became the fastest app ever to reach the milestone, surpassing the previous record set by Google Maps, which took around five years after launch to reach the same volume of usage, Sensor Tower said.
OpenAI, which did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment, said in February that ChatGPT saw more than 900 million weekly active users across web and mobile platforms and claimed it had more than six times the monthly web visits and mobile sessions of the next largest AI platform.
According to Sensor Tower, OpenAI’s market-leading large language model was trailed by offerings from its competitors, including Google’s Gemini, ByteDance’s Doubao and its overseas variant Dola, as well as Claude from rival developer Anthropic.
But while ChatGPT enjoys a significant lead in monthly users, rival models are quickly catching up. Monthly usage of Claude and Meta AI respectively rose by 640% and 973%…
