Since its debut in November 2022, ChatGPT, OpenAI’s groundbreaking AI-powered chatbot, has rapidly grown into a global phenomenon. Originally conceived as a productivity-enhancing tool for generating essays and creating basic code from brief text prompts, it now regularly engages over 300 million weekly active users worldwide.
The year 2024 marked a particularly transformative period for OpenAI, highlighted by significant developments including a strategic collaboration with Apple to create “Apple Intelligence,” a generative AI offering integrated into core Apple applications. Last year also saw the unveiling of GPT-4o, a versatile model capable of voice-interaction, and OpenAI’s eagerly awaited text-to-video model, Sora.
However, alongside these successes, OpenAI navigated substantial internal turbulence. High-profile departures by senior executives—including co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati—drew widespread attention. Adding to these challenges, OpenAI became embroiled in a range of legal disputes. The company faced copyright infringement lawsuits from newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital and encountered stern opposition from Elon Musk, who secured an injunction against the company’s proposed shift from a nonprofit structure to a for-profit organization.
Entering 2025, OpenAI confronted mounting competition from international AI companies, notably deep-learning rivals out of China such as DeepSeek. In response to perceptions that it was losing ground, OpenAI has intensified its efforts to strengthen relationships within Washington and advanced ambitious initiatives, including a massive data-center collaboration with Oracle and SoftBank. Additionally, reports indicate the company is laying the foundation for one of the largest funding rounds in technology history.
In recent months, ChatGPT continued to expand its capabilities. OpenAI began integrating Google’s AI chips into its operations—marking its first significant shift away from exclusively using Nvidia GPUs. An MIT study raised concerns about potential negative impacts of ChatGPT on users’ critical thinking ability, highlighting results showing lowered brain engagement compared to traditional writing. Moreover, the ChatGPT mobile app’s popularity surged last month, reaching nearly 30 million downloads in 28 days, closely rivaling major social media platforms in popularity.
Environmental costs of large-scale AI adoption also gained attention—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that a typical ChatGPT query uses roughly as much energy as powering a lightbulb for several minutes, highlighting the substantial resources required in scaling up AI products globally.
OpenAI further boosted ChatGPT’s capabilities by releasing upgraded models like O3-Pro, an advanced reasoning engine available to premium subscribers, and enhancing conversational voice modes for more natural interactions. Other enterprise-focused features were introduced as well, including support for integrating business software tools such as Google Drive and Box directly within the chatbot.
The company continues to innovate on multiple fronts, securing a $6.4 billion acquisition deal for Jony Ive’s hardware startup io, indicating an ambitious push into physical AI-driven devices. OpenAI also unveiled Codex—a dedicated AI tool for coding tasks—and expressed intentions to heavily personalize ChatGPT by potentially logging detailed user life experiences to improve context and responses.
Further model enhancements like GPT-4.1 promised superior coding performance, and new integrations with GitHub allowed developers more precise code analysis through ChatGPT. Globally, OpenAI expanded its operational capabilities, deploying data residency programs throughout Asia and facilitating closer collaborations with national governments to broaden the availability of AI infrastructure abroad.
At the same time, OpenAI faced scrutiny over content guidelines and privacy concerns. Incidents such as erroneous responses allowing potentially harmful interactions, particularly involving younger users, drew sharp criticism and prompted swift actions to strengthen oversight practices. Furthermore, a controversial model update that unintentionally made the chatbot excessively agreeable led to pointed discussions around AI safeguards and content transparency. OpenAI quickly reversed the change while pledging improvements.
The company also explored more ambitious experimental AI models capable of openly interacting with other cloud services and gained international attention for plans to develop both an openly accessible AI model and its own potential social media platform. Despite setbacks, ambitions remained high, with OpenAI poised to retire its powerful GPT-4.5 model from public API use due to cost and technical considerations early in July 2025.
Increased interest in AI visual creations also saw users generate more than 700 million images on ChatGPT’s enhanced image features this year—a testament to accelerating user enthusiasm and the enormous market potential of generative AI tools.
Looking ahead, OpenAI is actively working to remain a leader in a fiercely competitive AI landscape, balancing aggressive growth with a responsible approach to safety, transparency, and societal impact.
