What people ask ChatGPT: OpenAI's own data, by country and age

About a fifth of everything people send ChatGPT is a request for information. In OpenAI's own data, 20.2% of consumer messages in September 2026 were looking something up, up from 16.7% in July 2024, while writing fell from 34.1% to 21.4%. The two were level in August 2026, when looking things up edged ahead for the first time. Practical guidance, the how-to and advice questions, is still the largest single use at 28.1%.

Where the numbers come from

OpenAI publishes the data as Signals. Version 3.0, released on 26 October 2026, classifies a sample of 1 million messages a month from adults on Free, Go, Plus and Pro accounts, from July 2024 to September 2026. Enterprise accounts and Codex are left out, so business and coding use is understated. Messages are sorted by OpenAI's own classifiers into seven topics, and every release restates the earlier months, so figures from different versions do not match.

It also disagrees with OpenAI's 2025 research paper with Harvard economists, which put information seeking at 24% of messages in mid-2025. Signals puts the same period at 18.3%. OpenAI has not explained the gap. Quote the version you use.

What people use ChatGPT for

Writing lost the most share, and most of it went to images, conversation and unclassified messages. Looking things up took a smaller slice. Technical help fell mostly because coding moved to Codex, which this data excludes.

By country

Western Europe has moved furthest: in Spain looking things up has led writing in 12 of the last 15 months. The UK and Portugal crossed in mid-2026. The UAE is still the most writing-heavy of these markets, and Brazil and India have not moved, at about 15% in both years.

Per head, OpenAI's country ranking, averaged over the four quarters to September 2026, puts Singapore and the Netherlands first and second, with the UAE 10th. Among large markets, France ranks 23rd, Germany 24th, Spain 29th, Portugal 34th, the UK 42nd and the US 48th of 170. India ranks 122nd.

By age

Older users look things up more, and they are a growing part of the audience: people aged 35 and over sent 35% of messages in September 2026, up from 27% in July 2024. OpenAI publishes the age mix of each topic; the shares above are our calculation from those tables.

At work

Work-related messages were 32.2% of the total in September 2026. Inside them, information seeking sat at 11% to 12% for two years, then rose to 13.9% in August 2026 and 15.2% in September. Two months is early, and the next release will show whether it holds. Outside work, information seeking has stayed at 22% to 23% since 2024, so much of the global rise comes from personal use growing as a share of all messages.

What the data does not show

• Clicks, visits or citations. Signals measures what people ask, with nothing on what ChatGPT linked to or who was recommended. For your own traffic from ChatGPT, see how to measure ChatGPT traffic in GA4.

• Product questions on their own. Seeking information bundles facts, product questions and recipes, and OpenAI does not release the split.

• Business accounts. Enterprise and Codex are excluded.

What it means for a brand

• A buyer checking what a product does, comparing suppliers or asking for a price is inside the fifth of messages that look things up, next to trivia and recipes. When the answer names a business, it names someone.

• How-to and advice questions are the largest use in every market here except the UAE, where writing still leads. Pages that answer the practical questions your buyers ask are the content these answers draw on.

• The audience is ageing toward the people who sign off purchases, and those age groups look things up most.

• Each market moves at its own pace. Read your own market's line before you plan around the global figure.

OpenAI's other changes this month are on the OpenAI roadmap page.