OpenAI increases its paid user base by 50% in three months

As ChatGPT approaches its third anniversary this fall, OpenAI announced that the chatbot has spurred a 50% increase in paid users since February. 

COO Brad Lightcap told CNBC (CMCSA+0.03%) that the company now boasts three million users shelling out cash for its Enterprise, Team, and Edu platforms.

Once the revolutionary chatbot captured the public’s imagination in late 2022, OpenAI began rolling out versions specific to sectors like finance, health care, and post-secondary education.

One of the latest features for both Team and Enterprise involves “connectors,” allowing users to draw from their own data stored on third-party products like Dropbox (DBX-1.73%) and Google Drive (GOOGL-1.57%). And moving into the territory of transcription services like Otter and Trint, ChatGPT now has a “record mode” which will transcribe meetings. It will first be available to Team users on macOS, the company announced on Wednesday.

Lightcap told CNBC that all these tools will help integrate ChatGPT into workplaces. “It’s got to be able to do tasks for you, and to do that, it’s got to really have knowledge of everything going on around you and your work. It can’t be the intern locked in a closet. It’s got to be able to see what you see.”

In 2024, OpenAI posted $3.7 billion in revenue, with $5 billion in losses. This past March, the company said it anticipated $12.7 billion in revenue for 2025, and $29.4 billion in 2026. Due to the high costs of data centers and GPUs, it does not expect to be cash-positive until 2029 — at which point it projects a whopping $125 billion in annual revenue.

Paid subscriptions constitute 75% of OpenAI’s revenue. A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs $200 a month for access to its most sophisticated models.