The Information, a U.S. information technology (IT) outlet, reported on the 25th local time, citing sources, that OpenAI expects the number of paid subscribers to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT to rise to 220 million within five years.
OpenAI expects ChatGPT's weekly active users (WAU), currently around 800 million, to grow to 2.6 billion by 2030, with 220 million, or 8.5%, becoming subscribers to the "Plus" plan. As of July, combined subscribers to the "Plus" and "Pro" plans stood at 35 million, about 5% of the then-700 million WAU. Ultimately, OpenAI appears to be pursuing a strategy of exponentially increasing ChatGPT's total user base while also raising the share of paid subscribers among them.
OpenAI's plans are split into the $20-per-month Plus and the $200-per-month Pro. If 220 million people use the Plus plan, annual sales from that alone would reach $52.8 billion (about 78 trillion won). Including revenue from Pro plan subscriptions would push sales even higher.
Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said on social media earlier this month that OpenAI's sales this year are expected to exceed $20 billion and grow to the hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030.
However, The Information noted that the increase in ChatGPT's WAU has shown extreme volatility recently. In January this year, it surged 42% from the previous month, but in September it rose only 13%. The outlet also said OpenAI issued this outlook before Google announced its competing service "Gemini 3," which has recently drawn positive reviews in the market.