ChatGPT: so popular, hardly anyone will pay for it

OpenAI is losing three times more money than it earns, with 95% of ChatGPT's 800 million users not paying for the service. The company posted a $13.5 billion net loss in the first half of 2025 against $4.3 billion in revenue, while committing over $1 trillion in datacenter spending through partnerships with Nvidia, AMD, and others. Despite ChatGPT generating 70% of OpenAI's recurring revenue and dominating 80% of generative AI web traffic, the company faces significant challenges converting free users to paid subscribers, with only 5% currently paying compared to an industry average of 3%.