OpenAI is setting an aggressive roadmap for the future of generative AI adoption, projecting that ChatGPT will reach nearly 220 million paying users by 2030. According to early internal estimates shared with industry analysts, the company expects around 8.5% of its anticipated weekly active user base — calculated to reach roughly 2.6 billion globally — to convert to paid subscription plans over the next five years. If achieved, this trajectory would place ChatGPT among the world’s biggest subscription services, comparable to leading entertainment and productivity platforms.

The forecast is built on the assumption that generative AI will shift from a novelty tool to a fundamental digital utility used in daily personal, professional and educational routines. OpenAI expects demand for premium AI assistance to rise as users rely more deeply on advanced capabilities that go beyond the free version, including automated workflow execution, personalised tutoring, professional writing support, coding assistance and multimodal features. The company is increasingly positioning ChatGPT as a universal productivity layer that can sit above apps, operating systems and online services.

In addition to subscription revenue, OpenAI is expanding its enterprise portfolio, with businesses integrating ChatGPT for customer experience, training, software development and operational intelligence. The company believes that organisations adopting AI as a core workplace tool will further accelerate paying user growth, especially as AI agents become more capable of handling tasks end-to-end rather than just generating information.

While the target is ambitious, analysts suggest that if generative AI becomes embedded in major productivity workflows — similar to email and search — a large paying base is plausible. For OpenAI, the coming years are expected to define whether ChatGPT evolves from a widely used free assistant into a globally scaled digital subscription ecosystem.