OpenAI Misses 1B User Goal as Growth Slows, Revenue Lags
OpenAI fell short of its internal target of 1 billion weekly ChatGPT users by end of 2025 and missed revenue goals.
OpenAI is hitting some uncomfortable speed bumps. The company failed to reach its internal goal of 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal. It also missed multiple monthly revenue targets earlier in 2026.
That's a problem when you're spending like there's no tomorrow. OpenAI's own CFO and board members have reportedly started questioning the company's massive data-center spending amid slowing growth. When your finance chief is raising eyebrows at the burn rate, that's not a great sign.
The misses suggest ChatGPT's explosive early adoption may be plateauing faster than OpenAI anticipated. Scaling from hundreds of millions of users to a billion turns out to be a very different game than the initial viral surge.