OpenAI is doubling down on safety and expansion amid lawsuits, exec shakeups, and rapid user growth.
The company announced new ChatGPT safeguards after facing a lawsuit from the parents of a 16-year-old who died by suicide. Updates include stronger mental health risk detection and parental controls.
Elon Musk’s xAI started a federal lawsuit accusing Apple and OpenAI of colluding to block competitors in app markets. Meanwhile, OpenAI launched a cheaper ChatGPT Go subscription in India for $4.57/month to grow its presence there. 
The ChatGPT mobile app has hit $2 billion in revenue since its May 2023 launch, making roughly $2.91 per install. This dwarfs competing AI chat apps by about 30x.
Despite launching the next-gen GPT-5 model, OpenAI continues offering older GPT options and new modes like “Auto,” “Fast,” and “Thinking” to meet varying user needs. CEO Sam Altman admitted “dumber” GPT-5 glitches were due to routing issues and promised double rate limits for paid users.
OpenAI also slashed ChatGPT Enterprise pricing for US federal agencies to just $1 for a year as it pushes deeper into government adoption.
In hardware moves, OpenAI now uses Google’s AI chips alongside Nvidia GPUs to power its products, signaling a major shift. Plus, the company is working on an AI-powered browser to challenge Google Chrome.
For developers and businesses, OpenAI rolled out new AI reasoning models like o3-pro, added real-time voice chat upgrades, and integrated ChatGPT with GitHub for code research.
On growth, ChatGPT neared 700 million weekly users by August 2025, quadrupling in size over the past year. The service processes 2.5 billion daily prompts, half from the US.
OpenAI is preparing a major funding round and working to expand data centers globally through its Project Stargate initiative, aiming to keep pace with Chinese rivals like DeepSeek.
Key controversies remain: OpenAI faces copyright lawsuits from Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers and an injunction from Elon Musk. It also handles complaints about defamatory ChatGPT hallucinations and bugs letting minors access inappropriate content.
OpenAI plans more openness too, releasing its first open source models since GPT-2. But it’s delaying open-model launches for safety checks.
More updates:
- ChatGPT’s mobile users skew 85% male and mostly under 25.
- OpenAI will discontinue GPT-4.5 from API in July.
- Free ChatGPT users can now use web search without signing in.
- OpenAI offers free ChatGPT Plus for US and Canadian college students.
- ChatGPT’s “Study Mode” and new AI agents launched to improve education and workflow automation.
Sam Altman is pushing to make ChatGPT more personalized by tracking users’ life details and making the AI smarter about tasks like coding, scheduling, and research.
Sam Altman stated during a Reddit AMA:
Updates to ChatGPT:
You can now choose between “Auto”, “Fast”, and “Thinking” for GPT-5. Most users will want Auto, but the additional control will be useful for some people.
Rate limits are now 3,000 messages/week with GPT-5 Thinking, and then extra capacity on GPT-5 Thinking…
With OpenAI racing to scale, evolve, and fend off challenges, 2025 is shaping up as a pivotal year for the AI powerhouse.
For more details see OpenAI’s official blog and related articles cited above.
