Those additions lifted the number of such subscribers from two million in February to three million currently, Seeking Alpha reported Wednesday (June 4), citing a livestream held by OpenAI.
The figure includes subscribers to ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Team and ChatGPT Edu, according to the report.
CNBC, which reported the same numbers of paying business subscribers, said that OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told it in an interview that the company’s business tools are being adopted across industries, including highly regulated ones like financial services and health care.
“There’s this really tight interconnect between the growth of ChatGPT as a consumer tool and its adoption in the enterprise and in business,” Lightcap said, per the report.
OpenAI reported in September that in the year after it launched the first of its three business products, it gained 1 million paying business users.
Like the total reported Wednesday, that figure included users of ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Team and ChatGPT Edu.
OpenAI launched its first business product, ChatGPT Enterprise, in August 2023. That was followed by the launches of ChatGPT Team in January 2024 and ChatGPT Edu in May 2024.
“From reshaping how students learn, to optimizing patient care and transforming how governments serve their citizens, AI is redefining how people work,” Lightcap said at the time in a statement. “We’re proud to help over a million paying business users work more productively, streamline operations and uncover new opportunities for innovation.”
Generative AI is becoming more integrated into daily workflows, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report, “GenAI: A Generational Look at AI Usage and Attitudes.”
The report found that 82% of workers who use GenAI at least weekly agreed that it can improve productivity.
Adoption of OpenAI’s products has grown rapidly with other sorts of users as well, beyond those using them for business.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in April that the AI startup has reached about 800 million people and that its user base has doubled in a matter of weeks.
“Something like 10% of the world uses our systems, now a lot,” Altman said.
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