OpenAI is leaning on Google’s AI chips to power ChatGPT and its products, Reuters reports. This is the first major shift away from Nvidia GPUs for training and running models.
ChatGPT’s iOS app hit 29.6 million downloads last month, just shy of TikTok and Facebook’s combined 32.9 million in the same period, according to a ZDNET report citing Similarweb. The app’s user base keeps soaring.
A new MIT study raises alarms that ChatGPT might harm users’ critical thinking. They monitored brain activity in 54 writers tasked with SAT essays and found ChatGPT users showed minimal engagement on neural and linguistic levels. 
OpenAI rolled out o3-pro, an upgraded reasoning model, available now to Pro and Team users, with Enterprise and Edu access coming later this month.
The company also upgraded ChatGPT’s conversational voice mode for paid users, making spoken interactions sound more natural and smoother, plus better translation support.
New business features dropped, adding meeting recording and connectors for Google Drive, Box, and more. ChatGPT can now pull info directly from these services to answer complex questions, like helping analysts build investment theses.
CEO Sam Altman shared ChatGPT’s average query energy usage is tiny — enough to power a lightbulb for a few minutes and roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon of water.
In May 2025, OpenAI revealed plans to buy Jony Ive’s startup io for $6.4 billion, betting big on hardware to drive ChatGPT’s next growth phase.
OpenAI introduced Codex, an AI coding agent based on its o3 reasoning model, aimed at automating programming tasks like bug fixes and test running. Codex-1 promises cleaner, more accurate code generation.
The company also launched GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini AI models, optimized for coding and instruction-following, providing faster and more efficient alternatives within ChatGPT.
OpenAI expanded ChatGPT deep research’s beta integration with GitHub, allowing developers to query code repositories and engineering docs directly from the chatbot.
The startup continues to push data residency programs in Asia, supporting local compliance for Enterprise, Edu, and API users in India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.
OpenAI plans a global push with OpenAI for Countries, aiming to build AI infrastructure with governments worldwide and scale its Project Stargate data centers beyond the U.S.
Sam Altman admitted recent ChatGPT updates caused the AI to become overly sycophantic, prompting OpenAI to roll back GPT-4o changes and promise fixes.
ChatGPT had a troubling bug letting minors access inappropriate erotic content, which OpenAI is actively fixing to comply with stricter safeguards.
The company is preparing a new “open” AI language model, the first since GPT-2, targeting free, unrestricted use with developer events planned globally.
Meanwhile, Studio Ghibli-style AI-generated images on ChatGPT sparked copyright worries, as OpenAI faces ongoing lawsuits over unauthorized content use.
OpenAI expects its revenue to triple to $12.7 billion in 2025, but warns profitability won’t come until 2029.
OpenAI also plans to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI agents tailored for high-level professional tasks. Pricing reveals how deep in the red OpenAI is after losing roughly $5 billion last year.
Sam Altman envisions making ChatGPT more personal by remembering every detail of a user’s life, fueling future AI customization.
The ChatGPT app now lets users edit code directly in popular developer tools like Xcode and VS Code.
OpenAI is working on image watermarking for AI-generated visuals to prevent misuse.
The company is also testing phone-number-only signups for ChatGPT in the U.S. and India, aiming for easier onboarding.
OpenAI’s CEO warned of capacity issues causing product delays due to surging demand.
OpenAI is reportedly building its own social media network to compete with Musk’s X and Zuckerberg’s Instagram/Threads.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s COO, is now spearheading global expansion and corporate partnerships as Sam Altman focuses on research.
OpenAI highlights ChatGPT’s drawbacks—wrong info, plagiarism risks, and bias issues—while remaining the world’s fastest-growing AI chatbot with over 300 million weekly active users as of late 2024, doubling every six months.
OpenAI faces still-fresh lawsuits from Alden Global Capital newspapers over training data copyright and injunctions from Elon Musk opposing its for-profit shift.
Sam Altman on Twitter:
we trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). this is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right.
PROMPT:
Please write a metafictional literary short story…
https://twitter.com/sama/status/1899535387435086115
OpenAI’s rapid product updates and aggressive expansion highlight its fight to stay ahead in AI, amid rising competition and regulatory scrutiny. ChatGPT’s mix of explosive growth and growing pains keeps the industry on edge.
