ChatGPT from OpenAI, which had entered a stagnant phase, has recently shown a steep growth trend again.
CNBC reported on the 9th that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in an internal message that "ChatGPT's monthly growth rate has topped 10% again."
Altman said usage of the coding artificial intelligence (AI) model "GPT-5.3-Codex," unveiled on the 5th, increased by about 50% within a week. He was said to have assessed the pace of Codex's spread as very fast.
Altman also notified staff that a new chatbot model will be introduced within this week. The new model is considered likely to be either a chatbot version of the recently released Codex or a next-generation model whose internal development ramped up last year.
Earlier, as growth in ChatGPT usage slowed late last year due to the rise of competing models such as Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI issued an internal "major alert" and focused resources on improving its core models. In the process, the release timing of "GPT-5.2" was moved up and it was unveiled in December last year.
On the back of the recent recovery in growth, OpenAI is said to be in the final stages of raising about $100 billion. The company has reportedly emphasized to investors that the Codex coding model is chipping away at competing models' share in the corporations AI market.
This funding round went through a first close with participation from Microsoft (MS), Nvidia and Amazon, and additional investors such as SoftBank are being mentioned as likely to join.
Meanwhile, starting today, OpenAI began showing ads to users of the free and low-cost ChatGPT plans in the United States. OpenAI said the ads are displayed separately from ChatGPT's answers and that conversation content and personal information are not provided to advertisers. It also said ads are not shown to minor accounts.