How People Actually Use ChatGPT: 5 Surprising Insights From A Landmark NBER Study

If you have ever wondered what is chatgpt used for, the newest NBER working paper finally opens the black box. Drawing on 1.5 million conversations from consumer plans, the authors show a technology that now serves roughly 700 million weekly users who send more than 2.5 billion messages per day. That is not a niche app. That is infrastructure.

This piece distills the NBER working paper chatgpt analysis into five clear takeaways you can use right now. You will see how people use chatgpt in everyday life and at work, where the real gains are showing up, and why the question “what is chatgpt used for” demands a richer answer than “email drafts and code snippets.” We will ground each insight with chatgpt usage statistics from the paper, then translate the numbers into practical guidance for teams, students, and solo operators.

1. Personal Use Dominates, Not Just A Work Tool

The headline statistic is simple, and it changes how we talk about AI. About 70 percent of consumer ChatGPT use is non-work, and that share has been rising. Work usage is growing too, just not as fast. If you are mapping productivity only to paid labor, you are missing most of the value.

A table in the paper shows daily messages jumping from 451 million in June 2024 to 2.63 billion in June 2025, while the non-work share climbs from 53 percent to 73 percent in that window. This is not a blip, it is the new baseline for chatgpt work vs personal use.

Economists will care about the consumer surplus number. The authors cite evidence that U.S. users would need to be paid roughly 98 dollars to give up generative AI for a month, which implies at least 97 billion dollars in annual surplus in 2024. That is the kind of value GDP has a hard time seeing because much of it lands in people’s personal lives. If you still ask what is chatgpt used for, start with household decision support and life admin.

Table A. Work vs Personal Use, Daily Messages

Source, NBER working paper chatgpt, consumer plans only.

So what to do with this? If you build products or content around “work only,” you will under-serve the real market. If you lead a team, accept that many employees already picked up better thinking habits at home. The practical response to what is chatgpt used for is not blocking it, it is coaching people to use it well in both contexts.

To make this concrete, try a simple Monday ritual. Ask your team to paste one non-work question they asked last week that actually improved their life. Then adapt the pattern to a work decision they face this week. This makes “what is chatgpt used for” an actionable prompt, not a debate topic.

2. The Big Three, What ChatGPT Is Used For Most

When readers search what is chatgpt used for, they expect a clean list. The paper delivers one. Nearly 80 percent of conversations fall into three buckets, Practical Guidance, Seeking Information, and Writing. That is your short answer to how people use chatgpt today.

Practical Guidance covers tutoring, how-to advice, and creative ideation. Seeking Information behaves like a flexible web search that stays in the chat. Writing spans email drafts, summaries, edits, critiques, and translations. In June 2025, writing was the single largest work use. Two thirds of writing tasks are not greenfield creation, they are edits or improvements to the user’s text. All of this is visible in the chatgpt usage statistics the authors share.

If your product, class, or workflow does not speak to these three, you are leaving value on the table. The practical answer to what is chatgpt used for is therefore short and specific, to get advice, to look something up, and to upgrade words.

Table B. What People Do In Chat, A Simple Map

Figures reflect the paper’s groupings and qualitative patterns reported across 2024–2025.

2.1 Why Writing Leads At Work

Writing is the connective tissue in most jobs, which explains its dominance in work chats. The paper estimates that about 40 percent of work-related messages are writing tasks, and most ask for revisions, not full drafts. That fits lived experience, it is easier to improve a rough paragraph than to invent one. If you want a crisp reply to what is chatgpt used for at work, say polishing words that drive decisions.

You can turn this into practice quickly. Keep a “before” and “after” log. For each important message, write your version, then ask for one pass on clarity and tone, note the exact changes, and paste both in your log. Review at the end of the week. That is how to answer what is chatgpt used for with measurable improvement.

3. The Myth Of The AI Coder

A popular belief says chat is mostly for coding. The data says otherwise. Computer programming accounts for about 4.2 percent of consumer conversations in ChatGPT. Other platforms that skew toward developers report higher shares, which explains the perception gap. If your team is still guessing what is chatgpt used for by looking at Git-based screenshots, broaden the lens.

This does not mean coding help is small in impact. It means the median user arrives for advice, writing, and search-like tasks. Design for that median, then layer in dev-focused experiences where they matter.

4. The Demographics Are Changing, Fast

Early ChatGPT users skewed heavily male. That is no longer true. By mid-2025, weekly active users were slightly more likely to have typically feminine first names. Younger users punch above their weight too, with nearly half of all adult messages coming from people under 26. Growth is fastest in low- and middle-income countries, which is what democratization looks like in practice. If you are curious what is chatgpt used for in Nairobi, Dhaka, or Bogotá, the answer is increasingly the same as in New York.

This matters if you build products or curricula. The old persona of a tech-savvy male coder does not represent the current base. When someone asks what is chatgpt used for in your community, reach for examples from tutoring, immigration forms, exam prep, and small business marketing. Those are the rails many new users ride first.

Demographic highlights you can cite in a slide deck

• Gender gap has effectively closed by mid-2025, near parity in active users.
• Almost half of adult messages come from users under 26.
• Usage growth rates are higher in low- and middle-income countries.

If a colleague wonders what is chatgpt used for by students, the honest answer is everything from study plans to scholarship letters to lab-report polish. If a policymaker asks what is chatgpt used for in developing regions, the answer includes job search, language help, and navigating government forms.

5. The Rise Of “Asking”, Your AI Co-Pilot Emerges

The paper introduces a simple taxonomy for intent, Asking, Doing, and Expressing. About 49 percent of messages are Asking, 40 percent are Doing, and 11 percent are Expressing. Asking has grown faster than Doing across 2024–2025, and it also scores higher on interaction quality. At work, Doing is more common, at roughly 56 percent, largely because writing tasks produce immediate outputs.

This is the key shift. People are not only outsourcing tasks. They are insourcing judgment. When a manager asks what is chatgpt used for in a product review, the best answer is not “generate the slides.” It is “stress-test a decision.” When a clinician asks what is chatgpt used for outside the clinic, the answer is not “diagnose.” It is “help someone weigh options before seeing a professional.”

Here is a simple pattern to make Asking pay off.

1. Frame the decision.
2. List constraints and what you will trade off.
3. Ask for two plans, one conservative, one bold.
4. Ask for failure modes and early warning signals.

Run that loop twice. You will get a better decision in 15 minutes than a task list built on thin assumptions. If a teammate asks what is chatgpt used for in their daily routine, teach them this loop.

6. What This Means For Workflows, Decisions First

Once you look past the hype, a coherent picture emerges. The O*NET mapping in the paper shows most work messages cluster around getting information, documenting or interpreting it, thinking creatively, and making decisions. In other words, the highest-leverage slice of knowledge work. The authors explicitly argue that the value chain runs through decision support, which is why the co-pilot narrative fits the evidence. If someone in leadership asks what is chatgpt used for that moves the needle, say “make better calls, sooner.”

This also explains why writing dominates work use. Writing is the medium of decisions. A crisp email unblocks a team. A tight summary aligns a board. A clear plan sets budgets. So when a stakeholder asks what is chatgpt used for in operations, finance, or sales, do not overthink it. Start with writing to clarify thinking, then build outward.

7. A Cleaner Answer To “What Is ChatGPT Used For”

Let us summarize with the facts you can pin on a wall.

• Scale: roughly 700 million weekly users and 2.5 billion messages per day by July 2025.
• Tilt: about 70 percent of consumer use is non-work and rising.
• Tasks: Practical Guidance, Seeking Information, and Writing account for nearly 80 percent of use. Writing leads at work, edits dominate creation.
• Coding: a meaningful minority at about 4.2 percent in consumer chat.
• Intent: Asking 49 percent, Doing 40 percent, Expressing 11 percent, with Asking rising faster. At work, Doing sits near 56 percent.
• People: gender parity, under-26 users send nearly half of adult messages, growth is strongest in lower income countries.

If a colleague still presses what is chatgpt used for, give the tight version. It helps people think, decide, and write, both at work and at home. That is why the surplus is so large.

8. Closing Thoughts, Then A Simple Call To Action

When you strip away the noise, the story is refreshingly human. People are not just looking for labor automation. They are looking for clarity. The paper’s data shows that Asking, the decision-support layer, keeps gaining share and satisfaction. The message to leaders is direct. If you want compounding returns, teach your teams how to ask better questions. When someone asks what is chatgpt used for that justifies budget, point to faster, higher-quality decisions across the board.

Your move this week

1. Pick one decision that matters.
2. Run the Asking loop.
3. Ship the decision memo with a clean reasoning trail.
4. Share the template with your team.

Then answer the next inevitable question, what is chatgpt used for in our culture, with a smile. Use it to think out loud, write with force, and move faster with less regret.

Primary source, “How People Use ChatGPT,” NBER Working Paper No. 34255, September 2025.

Notes on method and privacy, the paper relies on automated classifiers, not human reading, and reports only de-identified aggregates. That protects user data while still letting us learn what matters.

P.S. If you publish or teach, you now have a credible, data-backed way to answer what is chatgpt used for. Use it.