The world of artificial intelligence is witnessing a significant surge, with OpenAI’s enterprise usage experiencing a dramatic increase over the past year. The company’s latest findings reveal that ChatGPT message volume has grown by 8 times since November 2024, with workers reporting a daily time saving of up to an hour. This substantial growth underscores OpenAI’s push to establish itself as the leading enterprise AI provider, despite facing mounting pressures from competitors like Google and Anthropic.
The timing of these findings is crucial, coming just a week after OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, sent an internal memo highlighting the competitive threat posed by Google. With close to 36% of US businesses using ChatGPT Enterprise, compared to 14.3% for Anthropic, OpenAI is well-positioned in the market. However, the majority of its revenue still comes from consumer subscriptions, which are being threatened by Google’s Gemini. To stay ahead, OpenAI must focus on driving enterprise growth, which is essential to its business model.
According to Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist, the adoption of AI technologies by firms is crucial for economic growth. Historically, transformative technologies like the steam engine have had the most significant economic benefits when adopted and scaled by businesses. OpenAI’s new findings suggest that larger enterprises are not only increasing their adoption of AI but also integrating it deeper into their workflows. The company’s API is being used to consume 320 times more “reasoning tokens” than last year, indicating that companies are using AI for more complex problem-solving.
The increase in reasoning tokens, which correlates with increased energy usage, could be expensive for companies and may not be sustainable in the long term. OpenAI is seeing changes in how companies deploy its tools, with the use of custom GPTs jumping 19 times this year. These custom GPTs enable companies to codify institutional knowledge into assistants or automate workflows, with digital bank customer BBVA using over 4,000 custom GPTs.
The integration of AI tools has led to meaningful time savings for employees, with participants reporting a daily saving of 40 to 60 minutes. AI is also enabling workers to expand their capabilities, with three-quarters of those surveyed saying it allows them to do things they couldn’t do before. However, this increased use of AI also raises concerns about security vulnerabilities and other flaws. OpenAI’s recent release of its agentic security researcher Aardvark, currently in private beta, may help detect bugs and vulnerabilities.
Despite the growing adoption of AI, there is still a significant divide between “frontier” workers who use advanced tools and “laggards” who are slower to adopt. The most active ChatGPT Enterprise users are not using the most advanced tools available, and fully adopting AI systems requires a mindset shift and deeper integration with enterprise data and processes. OpenAI’s leadership sees this as an opportunity for laggards to catch up, but for workers training AI systems to replicate their work, it may feel more like a countdown.
As the AI landscape continues to evolve, OpenAI is committed to driving enterprise growth, with $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments over the next few years. The company’s focus on democratizing access to skills and enabling workers to do things they couldn’t do before is likely to have a significant impact on the future of work. However, it’s essential to address the concerns around security vulnerabilities and the sustainability of AI adoption. As businesses continue to integrate AI into their workflows, it’s crucial to strike a balance between the benefits of AI and the potential risks.
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