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OpenAI announced on July 31, 2026 that its models now serve more than 1 billion active users and more than 2 million businesses, reaching the 1-billion mark less than 4 years after ChatGPT’s November 2022 launch. Facebook took 6 years to reach 1 billion users. CFO Sarah Friar delivered the figures in an official company statement, one day after OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna API prices by 80%.
What OpenAI Announced: 1 Billion Users, 2 Million Business Customers
OpenAI’s July 31 announcement stated two milestones: over 1 billion active users and over 2 million business customers on its platform. “Our models now reach more than one billion active users and more than two million businesses. As people gain confidence in the technology, they use it more deeply,” said Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI. OpenAI did not specify whether the 1 billion figure counts weekly or monthly users; the company’s previous benchmark was 900 million weekly active users in late February 2026.
Friar’s “deeper usage” claim carries specific numbers: users send approximately 50% more messages daily after 6 months on the platform, and they use ChatGPT for twice as many work types, such as drafting, analysis, and coding. According to reports, OpenAI recorded $13.07 billion in 2025 revenue against a $21 billion loss, and only around 50 million of its 900 million weekly users held paid subscriptions as of earlier 2026.
Why OpenAI Cut GPT-5.6 Luna Prices 80% the Same Week
OpenAI reduced GPT-5.6 Luna API pricing by 80% on July 30, to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, and cut Terra pricing by 20%, to $2 and $12. Sol pricing is unchanged; a new Fast mode for Sol delivers 2.5× speed at double the cost. OpenAI attributes the cuts to GPU kernel rewrites that reduced serving costs 20% and speculative decoding improvements that raised token-generation efficiency more than 15%.
The timing targets rivals on cost: Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 5 faces a September 1 price increase, while Google Gemini 3.1 and DeepSeek V4 Flash compete for the same routine-workload budgets. “Better intelligence drives broader adoption. Broader adoption supports more investment. More investment improves intelligence and efficiency,” Friar said. Businesses weighing these tiers can compare current plans in our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Google subscription comparison.
What 2 Million Businesses on ChatGPT Means for Tool Buyers
The 2-million-business figure matters more to software buyers than the consumer milestone, because it measures organizations that adopted ChatGPT for workflows, such as customer support, document drafting, and data analysis. The 6-month usage data points to stickiness: business usage deepens after adoption rather than declining. At $0.20/$1.20 per million tokens, GPT-5.6 Luna now undercuts most frontier rivals for routine tasks, which repositions ChatGPT within the wider field of AI tools for business that decision-makers compare on capability and cost.
Our Take
Two million businesses is the bigger story than one billion users — sticky organizational usage is where revenue compounding happens. But the math is brutal: OpenAI reportedly lost $21 billion in 2025 with roughly 5% of weekly users paying, and it is cutting Luna prices 80% to win cost-sensitive business workloads. That squeeze between growth and margin persists until compute costs fall further. Businesses should treat this pricing as a buying window, not proof that frontier AI stays this cheap.
For Context
- OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna launch — the model family behind the July 30 price cuts
- OpenAI’s September 2026 IPO plans — why user-growth milestones and the profitability gap now face public-market scrutiny
Sources: TechRepublic · gHacks (Aug 4, 2026) · Herald Business
