A study of ChatGPT use co-written by OpenAI staff reports that ChatGPT had been adopted by around 10% of the world’s adult population by July 2025 and that non-work messages grew from 53% to more than 70% of use, from conversations classified by a privacy-preserving automated pipeline; the code is “available on request.”

SocioLens project,

Claim LD08-SL-C21 (v1.0)

Provenance and status

Claim type: Estimate
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: source position
Verification state: Checked against the abstract of the primary source only. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: A description of AI use outside ChatGPT, or of business and API use
Limitations: Only the NBER abstract and disclosure page were read; the full paper and its validation were not; data access terms beyond code on request are not stated there
Source (as cited): Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025
Source type: Working paper (recorded as “Academic working paper”)
Institutional position: AI developer co-authored (at least two of seven authors disclose that they are OpenAI employees; one is a Harvard economist)
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 16 October 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025 (Working paper)
Read the original

Version

This is the current version, v1.0. Earlier versions stay available, and their records never change.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (SOURCE_POSITION) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH SOURCE-POSITION QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (ABSTRACT_ONLY)
Source type (coded): WORKING_PAPER
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD08-SL-C21	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	A study of ChatGPT use co-written by OpenAI staff reports that ChatGPT had been adopted by around 10% of the world’s adult population by July 2025 and that non-work messages grew from 53% to more than 70% of use, from conversations classified by a privacy-preserving automated pipeline; the code is “available on request.”	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	ESTIMATE	base_types: ESTIMATE
4	RESEARCH STRAND	B — Data and access	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025	source_ids: SRC-SL-CHATTERJI-ET-AL-NBER-W34255
7	SOURCE TYPE	Academic working paper	classes: WORKING_PAPER
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	AI developer co-authored (at least two of seven authors disclose that they are OpenAI employees; one is a Harvard economist)	—
9	SCOPE	ChatGPT consumer plans, November 2022 to July 2025	—
10	DESIGN	Automated classification of a sample of conversations	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	A representative sample of ChatGPT conversations (size not read)	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	Automated classification pipeline inside OpenAI (details not read)	—
13	COMPARATOR	Not applicable	—
14	MAIN RESULT	About 10% of the world’s adults by July 2025; non-work share 53% to more than 70%; practical guidance, seeking information and writing nearly 80% of conversations; programming a relatively small share	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	What people use one developer’s chatbot for	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	A description of AI use outside ChatGPT, or of business and API use	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED ABSTRACT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: ABSTRACT_ONLY · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Only the NBER abstract and disclosure page were read; the full paper and its validation were not; data access terms beyond code on request are not stated there	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	Independent logs give a different work share: LD08-SL-C22	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	Global platform / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	Reports higher growth in lower-income countries	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	LD-08, D3, D2	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	Full text with validation details, or independent data on the same population	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH SOURCE-POSITION QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: SOURCE_POSITION
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-10-16	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-08 (LIVING_DEBATE); D3 (DOMAIN); D2 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025” → Chatterji et al. (2025), “How People Use ChatGPT” (SRC-SL-CHATTERJI-ET-AL-NBER-W34255--v1.0) — Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025; class WORKING_PAPER (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

Who can know about AI? Epistemic dependence and jurisdiction over the field (v0.1) LD-08

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, October 16). A study of ChatGPT use co-written by OpenAI staff reports that ChatGPT had been adopted by around 10% of the world’s adult population by July 2025 and that non-work messages grew from 53% to more than 70% of use, from conversations classified by a privacy-preserving automated pipeline; the code is “available on request.” [Claim LD08-SL-C21, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld08-sl-c21/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld08_sl_c21_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {A study of ChatGPT use co-written by OpenAI staff reports that ChatGPT had been adopted by around 10\% of the world’s adult population by July 2025 and that non-work messages grew from 53\% to more than 70\% of use, from conversations classified by a privacy-preserving automated pipeline; the code is “available on request.”},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-16},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld08-sl-c21/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD08-SL-C21, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 be022c18802f319d457ad0e1107df15099560cba40ef154f2693607891fa95f4.

Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)

SocioLens claim — LD08-SL-C21 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-16; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-08 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-08 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 21 — LD08-SL-C21” SHA-256 2e74881df7bf05dfef13b0af08474249604b045d26ad84886760d38be41bac63; fixture fixtures/authored/claims/LD08-SL-C21--v1.0.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD08-SL-C21 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-08 debate
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD08-SL-C21 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-16); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-08 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-08 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-CHATTERJI-ET-AL-NBER-W34255--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 21 — LD08-SL-C21 cites "Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-CHATTERJI-ET-AL-NBER-W34255--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Chatterji, Cunningham, Deming, Hitzig, Ong, Shan & Wadman, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper 34255, 2025".