Kate Rooney for CNBC: OpenAI Tops 400 Million Users Despite DeepSeek’s Emergence

The San Francisco-based tech company had 400 million weekly active users as of February, up 33% from 300 million in December, the company’s chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, told CNBC.

I don’t mean to keep bringing this up, but I made a bet with 9th5Mac last fall (which they don’t know about, but was high stakes for me) when they said that, “Before the end of the year, I have no doubt Apple’s AI features—especially what’s coming in 18.2—will become more mainstream than any other existing AI product.” Presently, ChatGPT has 400 million weekly users, and I don’t think there are even 400 million iPhones out there that can run Apple Intelligence.

No one has to use any of these tools if they don’t want, and they can love Apple products over everything else as well, but I really think there is a segment of people who seriously think it’s a few dozen nerds using AI tools and most of the world hasn’t even tried them yet. Or maybe they think that only Apple can make mainstream software? I don’t know, but let’s just say I didn’t lose that bet.