ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth of Google’s, ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York on Monday. Fry also said ChatGPT went from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly users in the last two months, and that its ads business reached “more than a billion in ARR” within 200 days.
OpenAI said in February that ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly active users. That puts the gain since then at about 300 million, and two-thirds of it, 200 million, came in the last two months, by our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Run-Rate Revenue
A Business Engineer explainer of what an AI company’s run-rate revenue figure means. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss ChatGPT’s ads or search figures.
The key insight: As we read it, the new element is the yardstick: OpenAI is now measuring ChatGPT against Google on query volume, at roughly one-fifth, while the ads revenue Fry gave is a run rate of more than a billion.
Asked about OpenAI’s comparison with Google, Fry said: “ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google.” He called it “a pretty amazing statistic” because “we started just about a year and a half ago.”
On users, he said: “To say that more directly, ChatGPT has gone from one billion to 1.2 in just the last two months. That’s roughly 100 million users in 30 days, and another 100 million in another 30 days.” He added: “The growth is just going big.”
Fry gave several other figures in the interview. Voice mode, counting dictation and conversations, has 250 million weekly active users. Users create 1.5 billion images a week. OpenAI had announced several months ago that it passed 50 million subscriptions, and Fry said the number “has grown considerably since then”.
On ads, he said: “On ads, within 200 days, we reached more than a billion in ARR, and that business is growing extremely quickly.” He also named credits as a revenue stream alongside subscriptions and ads.
ChatGPT weekly users as stated by OpenAI (31 March 2025, October 2025, 27 February 2026) and by Adam Fry to Big Technology (1 billion to 1.2 billion in the last two months, 2 November 2026). The 1 billion point’s date is approximate. The two-thirds share is our arithmetic.Animated: ChatGPT weekly users as stated by OpenAI (March 2025, October 2025, February 2026) and by Adam Fry (1 billion to 1.2 billion in the last two months). Points are evenly spaced, not to time scale; the 1 billion date is approximate. The two-thirds share is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
ChatGPT added 200 million weekly users in two months, and its search volume is now about a fifth of Google’s.
ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry shared the figures with Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz at an OpenAI dinner in New York on Monday.
Usage: โข Weekly users: 1.2 billion, up from 1 billion in 60 days โข Search-like queries: roughly one-fifth of Google’s volume โข Voice: 250 million weekly users โข Images: 1.5 billion created per week
Money: โข Ads passed $1 billion in annualized revenue within 200 days โข Subscriptions passed 50 million months ago and have “grown considerably” since
OpenAI also plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work modes soon.
Wall St Engine summarised Fry’s figures from the Big Technology interview at 15:29 UTC on 3 November: 1.2 billion weekly users, up from 1 billion in 60 days, and search-like queries at roughly one-fifth of Google’s volume. The figures in this piece are checked against the interview as Big Technology published it.
How the Search Count Works
Kantrowitz asked what counts as a search. Fry’s answer: “Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search.” He said such searches cover topics like people, places, finance and health, where ChatGPT runs a web search for up-to-date information.
“It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for,” he said. Asked whether one-fifth of Google made ChatGPT multiple times larger than Bing, Fry’s published answer turned to user growth instead.
In the interview as published, Fry did not say which Google query figure OpenAI used, over what period, or in which markets. Of writing and coding help, which he said is what people first came to ChatGPT for, Fry said: “Those wouldn’t be things that you really search for.”
Google’s Side of the Comparison
Alphabet reported on 28 October that Google Search & other revenue rose 12% to $63.35 billion in the third quarter of 2026, from $56.57 billion a year earlier. That was 49.7% of Alphabet’s $127.58 billion in total revenue, by our arithmetic.
Alphabet also said its year-over-year Search query growth rate was “the highest it has been in the last five years.” As we read the two statements together, ChatGPT’s one-fifth is measured against a Google query base that is still growing, not shrinking.
For scale, four quarters at Google Search & other’s third-quarter level would be $253.4 billion, and $1 billion is about 0.4% of that, by our arithmetic. The comparison is not like-for-like: Fry’s ads figure is an annual run rate of “more than” a billion, and ChatGPT also earns from subscriptions and credits.
The Earlier 1.2 Billion Figure
OpenAI’s DevDay 2026 recap on 29 September referred to “our collective 1.2B weekly users”, a figure we covered in ChatGPT’s 1.2B Weekly Users, and Where DevDay Landed. Fry’s account puts ChatGPT itself at 1 billion weekly users about two months ago.
The DevDay recap did not say what “collective” covered, and Fry did not refer to it in the interview. As we read it, the two figures may count different things; OpenAI has not reconciled them in anything we read.
Connecting the Coverage
Our related pieces on ChatGPT’s users and Google Search:
As we read OpenAI’s figures, ChatGPT’s growth sped up: its own numbers show about 100 million weekly users added between October 2025 and February 2026, and Fry describes 200 million added in the last two months.
As we read Alphabet’s release, Google’s Search query growth is at a five-year high at the same time, so the one-fifth comparison does not by itself show Google losing query volume.
As we read the money side, ChatGPT’s ads run rate of more than a billion compares with $63.35 billion of Google Search & other revenue in one quarter; annualised, that is about 0.4%, by our arithmetic, at roughly one-fifth of the query volume.
Adam Fry, ChatGPT consumer product lead, to Big Technology
“It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for”
Three Implications
FOR GOOGLE Alphabet reported Search & other revenue of $63.35 billion in the third quarter, up 12%, and said Search query growth was the highest in five years.
FOR OPENAI Fry named three revenue streams for ChatGPT, subscriptions, ads and credits, and said the ads business is growing extremely quickly.
FOR ADVERTISERS Fry described search-like queries about people, places, finance and health; the interview as published does not say how many of them show ads.
The framework opens: “AI has crossed from the training era to the inference era.” It adds: “Inference is a revenue engine: continuous, distributed across millions of applications and agents, incurring marginal cost with every query.”
As we read it, a ChatGPT search is one of those queries: each web search Fry counts is served by a model, while Google’s queries are paid for by $63.35 billion a quarter in Search & other revenue. The framework does not discuss ChatGPT’s search volume or its ads.
What Is Not Established
Fry gave no exact date for the 1 billion mark, no daily users, and no split by country or by free and paid users. He did not give the Google figure behind the one-fifth comparison or the exact amount behind “more than a billion” in ads.
The 300 million, two-thirds, 49.7% and 0.4% figures are our arithmetic. We did not contact OpenAI or Alphabet.
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According to Fry, ChatGPT’s search-like queries are roughly one-fifth of Google’s, its weekly users rose from 1 billion to 1.2 billion in two months, and its ads reached more than a billion in ARR within 200 days. By our arithmetic, two-thirds of ChatGPT’s weekly-user gain since February came in those two months.
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A note on sourcing. This piece is based on Big Technology’s published interview with Adam Fry (3 November 2026), OpenAI’s own pages of 31 March 2025, October 2025, 27 February 2026 and 29 September 2026, and Alphabet’s third-quarter 2026 earnings release. Fry’s quotes are as Big Technology published them, lightly edited by the outlet for clarity and length. The 300 million, two-thirds, 49.7% and 0.4% figures are our arithmetic. We did not contact OpenAI or Alphabet.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
