OpenAI's ChatGPT, a text-generating AI chatbot launched in November 2022, has cemented its position as a global phenomenon, boasting 300 million weekly active users in early 2025, a figure that surged to 800 million by October of the same year. This remarkable growth transformed it from a productivity tool for essays and code into a dominant force in the AI landscape, projecting revenues to triple to $12.7 billion in 2025 and its mobile app alone generating $2 billion since May 2023. Throughout 2025, OpenAI navigated intense competition, pursued ambitious expansion, and launched a continuous stream of product innovations, all while grappling with significant legal and ethical challenges.

The year 2025 began with OpenAI actively battling perceptions of ceding ground to rivals like DeepSeek, strengthening ties with Washington, pursuing data center projects, and laying the groundwork for a massive funding round. Key events from the preceding year, 2024, included a landmark partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly anticipated launch of its text-to-video model, Sora. However, the year also brought internal drama, marked by the exits of high-level executives like co-founder Ilya Sutskever and CTO Mira Murati, alongside a series of lawsuits alleging copyright infringement from news publishers and an injunction from Elon Musk to halt OpenAI's transition to a for-profit entity.

The latter half of 2025 saw a flurry of updates and strategic shifts. In December 2025, OpenAI highlighted a surge in enterprise use, with ChatGPT message volume up 8x since late 2024, emphasizing its push to win business customers amidst fierce competition from Google and Anthropic. The company rolled out GPT-5.2, offering Instant, Thinking, and Pro versions tailored for diverse tasks. A significant three-year, $1 billion deal with Disney brought Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters to Sora for AI video generation, coincidentally as Disney launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a "code red," re-prioritizing ChatGPT development amid rising competitive pressure, temporarily sidelining other initiatives like advertising.

November 2025 was marked by consumer-focused innovations and legal battles. OpenAI introduced an AI shopping assistant for product recommendations, while simultaneously refuting claims in a court filing linking ChatGPT to a teen's death, arguing misuse of the chatbot. Voice mode was integrated directly into ChatGPT's main interface for seamless interaction. The company faced a trademark lawsuit from video app Cameo, temporarily blocking its use of "cameo" for Sora features. Group chat capabilities were extended to all ChatGPT users. GPT-5.1 was released, upgrading reasoning models with "Instant" (more conversational) and "Thinking" (faster, complex reasoning) versions, alongside improved tone customization. A Munich court ruled ChatGPT violated German music copyright, setting a potential European precedent. OpenAI also began exploring the consumer health market with AI tools like personal health assistants. Tragically, seven more families accused OpenAI of negligence, claiming GPT-4o's premature release without safeguards contributed to suicides. Despite these challenges, OpenAI announced a milestone: over 1 million businesses globally now use its products, making it the fastest-growing business platform in history.

October 2025 saw OpenAI address critical safety concerns and expand its ecosystem. The company revealed ChatGPT handles over a million suicide-related conversations weekly, stating improvements in handling such interactions by consulting mental health experts. OpenAI reportedly began developing a tool to generate music from text and audio prompts. A "company knowledge" update enhanced ChatGPT for Business, Enterprise, and Education users, enabling searches across workplace data (Slack, Google Drive, GitHub) using GPT-5. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, an AI browser for Mac (with Windows, iOS, Android planned), aiming to make ChatGPT the primary web search tool. While ChatGPT's mobile app growth showed signs of leveling off, with an 8.1% month-over-month decline in new downloads, daily installs remained in the millions. A partnership with Walmart enabled users to browse products and plan meals through ChatGPT. The affordable ChatGPT Go plan expanded to 16 more Asian countries. Sam Altman announced ChatGPT had surpassed 800 million weekly active users, and developers gained the ability to build interactive apps directly inside ChatGPT with the new Apps SDK.

In September 2025, safety measures became a central focus, with OpenAI reportedly adding parental controls to ChatGPT on web and mobile, allowing linked accounts for safeguards like content limits and quiet hours, following a lawsuit over the chatbot's alleged role in a teen's suicide. ChatGPT Pulse was unveiled, offering personalized morning briefings. OpenAI launched Instant Checkout, allowing U.S. users to purchase products directly from Etsy and Shopify within conversations. The budget-friendly ChatGPT Go plan also rolled out in Indonesia. New policies tightened safeguards for under-18 users, blocking flirtatious exchanges and escalating severe cases like suicide discussions to authorities. GPT-5-Codex, a new AI coding agent, was released, featuring a dynamic approach to task handling (seconds to seven hours). OpenAI also reshuffled its Model Behavior team, responsible for shaping AI interactions, integrating it into the larger Post Training group and establishing a new OAI Labs unit.

August 2025 was marked by significant model releases and competitive dynamics. OpenAI strengthened ChatGPT safeguards on its blog, including mental health risk detection and parental controls, in response to a teen suicide lawsuit. Elon Musk's xAI filed a federal lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, alleging collusion and unfair market advantage. ChatGPT Go, OpenAI's most affordable subscription plan, was introduced in India. The ChatGPT mobile app hit $2 billion in global consumer spending since its May 2023 launch, generating $1.35 billion in 2025 alone. Despite the launch of GPT-5, OpenAI continued to offer several legacy AI options, including GPT-4o and GPT-4.1, alongside new "Auto," "Fast," and "Thinking" modes for GPT-5. Sam Altman addressed initial GPT-5 glitches (a router issue) and promised fixes and double rate limits for Plus users. GPT-5, described as a next-gen AI capable of coding apps, managing calendars, and creating research briefs, was officially released. OpenAI made a major push into federal government workflows, offering ChatGPT Enterprise to agencies for just $1 for the year. It also returned to open source, unveiling gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b models, amid growing competition. ChatGPT was on track to reach 700 million weekly active users in early August, quadrupling its size over the past year.

July 2025 brought educational and agentic advancements. ChatGPT's new Study Mode was rolled out, designed to promote critical thinking among students. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned users about the lack of confidentiality in AI therapy, contrasting it with human therapists. ChatGPT was reported to be handling 2.5 billion prompts daily worldwide, more than double the volume eight months prior. OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Agent, a general-purpose AI agent capable of autonomously performing computer-based tasks like navigating calendars, drafting presentations, running code, and online shopping. A Stanford University study warned of "significant risks" with AI therapy chatbots, noting their potential to stigmatize or respond inappropriately. OpenAI delayed the release of its open model again for additional safety testing. The company also reportedly planned to release an AI-powered web browser to challenge Google Chrome and was testing a "Study Together" feature. Referrals from ChatGPT to news sites increased, but not enough to offset declines from AI-powered search results.

In June 2025, OpenAI diversified its hardware reliance and enhanced its voice capabilities. The company began using Google's AI chips to power ChatGPT and other products, marking its first significant use of non-Nvidia chips. An MIT study suggested ChatGPT might harm critical thinking skills, observing minimal brain engagement in users. The ChatGPT app for iOS was downloaded nearly 30 million times in the preceding month. Sam Altman clarified that an average ChatGPT query uses minimal energy, about one-fifteenth of a teaspoon of water and 0.34 watt-hours of electricity. OpenAI launched o3-pro, an upgraded reasoning model, for ChatGPT and Team users, with API access. ChatGPT's conversational voice mode was upgraded for all paid users, enabling more natural, fluid sound and easier language translation. New features for business users included integrations with cloud services like Google Drive and Box, meeting recordings, and MCP connection support.

May 2025 saw OpenAI focus on hardware, coding, and personalization. CFO Sarah Friar indicated hardware would drive ChatGPT's growth, revealing plans to acquire Jony Ive's devices startup io for $6.4 billion. OpenAI introduced its AI coding agent, Codex, powered by codex-1, designed to generate precise code and complete tasks from simple features to bug fixes. Sam Altman expressed ambitions to make ChatGPT highly personalized by tracking every detail of a person's life. GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini AI models were released in ChatGPT, excelling in coding and instruction following. Deep research features connected with GitHub for code-related questions. OpenAI launched a data residency program in Asia for Enterprise, Edu, and API users, and an "OpenAI for Countries" program to grow AI infrastructure globally and customize products for local needs. The company also promised changes to prevent future "sycophancy" in ChatGPT's responses.

April 2025 brought clarifications and new models. OpenAI rolled back a GPT-4o update that caused "sycophancy" and confirmed a "bug" allowing inappropriate content with minors was being fixed. ChatGPT gained improved online shopping features, offering recommendations, images, and reviews. OpenAI leaders discussed allowing open models to link with cloud-hosted models for intricate questions and aimed to make its new "open" AI model the best on the market, free and without API restrictions. However, GPT-4.1 showed signs of being less aligned than earlier models, and the o3 AI model scored significantly lower on a math benchmark than OpenAI's initial claims. OpenAI launched Flex processing for cheaper, slower AI tasks and introduced a safeguard system to monitor o3 and o4 mini for biological and chemical threats. The new reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini, were released, offering advanced capabilities but also more hallucinations. A new "library" section made AI-generated images more accessible. OpenAI stated it might "adjust" its safety standards if rivals released "high-risk" AI systems. The company was also in early stages of building its own social media network and planned to discontinue GPT-4.5 from its API in July and GPT-4 at the end of April, replacing it with GPT-4o. GPT-4.1 models, focused on coding, were released via API. ChatGPT was updated to remember previous conversations, rolling out to Pro and Plus users (excluding some EU/UK regions). OpenAI worked on watermarks for AI-generated images and offered free ChatGPT Plus subscriptions to U.S. and Canadian college students through May. Over 700 million images had been generated by 130 million users since the upgraded image generator in March. Capacity issues from the image tool's popularity led to product delays.

In March 2025, OpenAI signaled a return to open-source and expanded capabilities. The company planned to release its "first" open language model since GPT-2. Restrictions on image generation were removed, allowing the creation of images of public figures and hateful symbols, a shift in content moderation. OpenAI adopted Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) for more accurate responses by linking AI models with data sources. The viral Studio Ghibli-style images generated by ChatGPT's updated image tool raised copyright concerns. OpenAI projected its revenue to triple to $12.7 billion in 2025. The image-generation feature was significantly upgraded using the GPT-4o model, initially for Pro/Sora subscribers, with free user access delayed due to high demand. Leadership updates saw Brad Lightcap lead global expansion and partnerships, Mark Chen become chief research officer, and Julia Villagra chief people officer. The AI voice assistant gained advanced features for real-time, personable conversations. OpenAI and Meta reportedly engaged in talks with India's Reliance Industries for AI service collaborations, including Jio distributing ChatGPT. The company faced a privacy complaint in Europe regarding defamatory hallucinations. New transcription and voice-generating AI models (gpt-4o-mini-tts, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe) were added to APIs. O1-pro, a more powerful reasoning model, was launched for select developers. OpenAI research lead Noam Brown suggested AI "reasoning" models could have emerged decades earlier. Sam Altman announced a new model "really good" at creative writing. New tools were rolled out to help businesses build AI agents via the Responses API (replacing Assistants API). OpenAI reportedly planned to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI agents. The macOS ChatGPT app allowed direct code editing for paid subscribers. ChatGPT's weekly active users doubled to 400 million by February 2025 from 200 million in August 2024, attributed to new models like GPT-4o.

February 2025 saw a strategic consolidation. OpenAI canceled the standalone release of its o3 AI model, opting instead for a "unified" GPT-5 that would integrate much of its technology. Insights emerged suggesting ChatGPT might not be as power-hungry as commonly assumed, with GPT-4o averaging 0.3 watt-hours per query. OpenAI began revealing more of its o3-mini model's step-by-step "thought" process. ChatGPT web search became accessible without logging in via ChatGPT.com. A new AI "agent" called deep research was unveiled, designed for in-depth, complex research across multiple sources.

In January 2025, OpenAI explored AI persuasion and targeted specific markets. The company used the subreddit r/ChangeMyView to test its AI reasoning models' persuasive abilities. O3-mini, a powerful yet affordable reasoning model, was launched. User demographics indicated 85% male mobile users, with over half under 25. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Gov for U.S. government agencies, providing enhanced security and compliance. A Pew Research Center survey showed 26% of U.S. teens used ChatGPT for schoolwork, double the figure from two years prior. OpenAI stated it might store deleted Operator data for up to 90 days (longer than ChatGPT's 30 days). Operator, a general-purpose AI agent capable of autonomously performing web browser tasks like booking travel or shopping, was launched as a research preview, potentially for Pro subscribers. OpenAI tested phone number-only signups in the U.S. and India and introduced a beta feature allowing users to schedule reminders and recurring tasks. Users also gained the ability to assign custom traits like "Chatty" or "Gen Z" to the chatbot.

Fundamentally, ChatGPT operates as a general-purpose, AI-powered chatbot using GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) large language models, with GPT-4o being the most recent iteration. It was released on November 30, 2022, and offers both free and paid versions. ChatGPT's capabilities span from everyday tasks like programming and email replies to advanced uses like debugging code and complex problem-solving. While it can write essays and code, its context awareness can be a limitation for complex applications. Users can save chats, but built-in sharing is limited. Data privacy is managed through opt-out and deletion request forms, balancing privacy with freedom of expression. Controversies have included its role in generating illegal instructions, defamation lawsuits (e.g., an Australian mayor), CNET's use for SEO farming, school bans due to plagiarism concerns, and the difficulty of reliably detecting AI-generated text. OpenAI continues to face lawsuits concerning AI systems trained on publicly available data, which directly impacts ChatGPT.