From asking to doing: How the world is putting ChatGPT to work
August 6, 2026 | Company | OpenAI
AI is moving from something people ask to something they put to work.
For the first time, OpenAI is publishing country-by-country data showing how people around the world use ChatGPT. The findings reveal a technology that is moving beyond answers and into action, spreading beyond early adopters, and becoming useful to more people in more ways:
- From asking to doing: At work, people are more than twice as likely to use ChatGPT to complete a task or create something, from writing and coding to analysis, than they are outside work.
- AI adoption is becoming more global: Countries across Latin America, Africa, and Oceania are catching up to early adopters, narrowing the global adoption gap.
- AI is moving beyond text: Multimedia is the fastest-growing use case globally, accounting for 7.8% of messages and more than one in ten in countries including Brazil and Colombia.
- AI is reaching beyond early adopters: Usage among people over 35 is rising in nearly every country. In France and Czechia, their share of messages increased by more than 10 percentage points in the past year.
Taken together, the data points to a clear shift: AI is no longer just helping people find answers. It is helping more people, in more places, get things done.
This new data is available to view or download on OpenAI Signals, our hub for data, research, and analysis, from the OpenAI Economic Research Team. These country-level statistics will help people, including policymakers and researchers around the world, better understand how more than 1 billion people are putting ChatGPT to work.
The Signals dataset specifically reflects messages sent within ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, and Pro accounts—the group of accounts generally managed by individuals rather than organizations.
At work, "doing" dominates
The data reflect a trend that has appeared in recent headlines, especially since the rollout of ChatGPT Work: people are increasingly using the technology, particularly for professional pursuits. In these settings, users are more frequently "doing"—using ChatGPT to produce an output or perform a task.
This type of work includes applications such as editing, coding, or conducting an analysis. Our data shows that, across the globe, people are more than twice as likely to use ChatGPT this way at work than outside of work. Outside of work, use is more exploratory: "asking," or seeking information and clarification, remains the largest category.
For work, individuals' messages are more about doing.
The adoption gap is closing
Continuing the steadily climbing trend worldwide documented in June, the countries and regions that began their AI journeys with lower ChatGPT per-capita adoption rates are gradually catching up to the established early adopters.
For Q2 2026, our team updated our usage rankings across countries. Notably, in the second quarter, usage in parts of Latin America, Oceania, and Africa increased faster than usage in other parts of the world, with Peru, Uruguay, and Costa Rica rising the most among countries in global rankings. Adoption continues to rise in North America and Europe, but parts of the Southern Hemisphere are catching up in per-capita adoption rates.
Figure 1: "Latin America and Oceania led Q2 adoption-rank gains." World map of 144 countries shaded by change in per-capita adoption rank (Q1 2026 → Q2 2026). Australia, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Austria, and Italy highlighted.
Multimedia use is the fastest growing use case for ChatGPT
As new capabilities emerge, specific use cases command people's attention and drive adoption. Take multimedia generation, analysis, and retrieval, for example. Since the release of ChatGPT Images 2.0 in April 2026, the share of messages across the world focused on multimedia use increased to 7.8%. While it still lags behind the leading use cases of practical guidance, writing, and information-seeking, multimedia use has been on a consistent upswing year-to-date.
Latin American countries stand out in using ChatGPT to make & analyze media
Drilling deeper into the category of multimedia messages, the data shows distinctive differences among countries and regions. In countries like Brazil and Colombia, more than one in ten messages to ChatGPT is categorized as multimedia.
Figure 2: "Latin American countries had higher-than-average multimedia use." World map of 126 countries shaded by multimedia message share (0%–15% scale).
ChatGPT adoption grew worldwide among people over 35
The quarter-over-quarter changes in per-capita adoption are not limited to use cases and regions alone. The data also demonstrate differences in adoption by age cohort.
The trend line over the last year shows that the percentage of messages sent by people over 35 increased in almost every country. Year over year, these users now account for a 5% higher share of messages than they did 12 months earlier. This is an analysis of only users who self-reported their age on the ChatGPT platform.
Looking at the data country-by-country, adoption among people aged 35 and older is growing particularly quickly in several countries. In France and Czechia, the share of messages sent by users 35 or older increased by more than 10 percentage points in the last year.
Almost three-quarters of European countries saw larger-than-average increases in their share of messages sent by these users, while the opposite pattern emerged in some Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore. Overall, the share of messages sent by these users increased in six of the eight countries in the region, albeit by only a small margin.
Figure 3: "Three-month trailing share of age-classified messages from users aged 35+, relative to each country's Q2 2025 average (percentage points)." Gray lines show all 111 countries with complete estimates; dashed gray shows the equal-country median. June 2026 endpoints compare the latest quarter with Q2 2025.
More about OpenAI Signals
OpenAI Signals is the OpenAI Economic Research team's platform for sharing our data and research with the world. In addition to our research, we publish regular updates on how individuals and businesses use ChatGPT. We encourage you to download the data here and explore our methodology here.
数据点小结（备忘）
| 维度 | 关键数字 |
|---|---|
| 工作中"做事" vs "求答" | 工作场景做事概率 = 非工作的 2 倍以上 |
| 全球采纳追赶者 | 秘鲁、乌拉圭、哥斯达黎加 Q2 排名上升最多 |
| 多媒体用例全球占比 | 7.8%（自 2026 年 4 月 Images 2.0 发布后持续上升） |
| 多媒体用例区域峰值 | 巴西、哥伦比亚：>10% 的消息归类为多媒体 |
| 35+ 用户占比变化 | 全球同比 +5 个百分点 |
| 35+ 用户区域峰值 | 法国、捷克：>10 个百分点的年增长 |
| 数据覆盖 | 144 国（采纳排名），126 国（多媒体），111 国（年龄） |
| 样本范围 | ChatGPT Free / Go / Plus / Pro（个人账户，非组织） |
原始数据可下载
- 可视化与下载：https://openai.com/signals/
- 个人用户数据：https://openai.com/signals/data/
- 企业用户数据：https://openai.com/signals/b2b/
- 完整数据下载：https://openai.com/signals/data-download/
- 数据字典（方法论 PDF）：https://cdn.openai.com/signals/data-dictionary.pdf
关联引用
- ChatGPT Work rollout（工作版本上线）
- ChatGPT Images 2.0（2026 年 4 月）
- 前一篇：How ChatGPT adoption has expanded (June)