How people use ChatGPT in 2025 (and why your brand must be the answer)

By July 2025, ChatGPT had reached nearly 10% of the world’s adult population as weekly active users, roughly 700 million people. That scale is hard to overstate. In June 2025 alone, ChatGPT handled 2.6 billion queries per day, more than Google Search managed in its first decade of existence [1].

This is no longer an experimental tool. Generative AI has become a default layer of search and creation. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides the clearest view yet of how people actually use ChatGPT, and the results reveal a fundamental shift in how your customers make decisions.

For brands, this isn’t just interesting data. It’s a wake-up call: the answers people see inside AI platforms are shaping awareness, preference, and trust. To compete, you must adopt Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) as a core strategy, ensuring your content is discoverable, authoritative, and LLM-parsable.

👉 The takeaway for brands: This study is your playbook. Your audience is now learning, deciding, and creating inside AI tools. Winning requires a GEO strategy: See where you appear, Pinpoint where you’re absent, and Generate content that ensures your brand is part of the answer. Yolando delivers the command center to execute in minutes, not months.

The 2025 data: ChatGPT as the new daily default

When ChatGPT launched, much of the discussion centered on workplace productivity—automating tasks, writing drafts, summarizing research. But the new NBER data shows that the story has changed. Non-work use now accounts for more than 70% of consumer conversations.

This means ChatGPT isn’t just an office tool, it’s part of everyday life. People are asking how to plan trips, manage health goals, cook meals, understand news events, and learn new skills. Just as Google once became the reflexive starting point for questions, ChatGPT is rapidly becoming the first stop for both information and action.

For brands, the implication is clear: invisibility in AI-driven answers means invisibility to a rapidly growing share of the market.

Yolando helps companies measure this shift directly, tracking Discoverability Scores across major LLMs. We show you where you appear in these conversations and where competitors have taken the lead.

The three primary ways your audience uses ChatGPT

The study breaks down usage into clear, dominant patterns.

1. Practical guidance and information-seeking

More than 53% of conversations involve users seeking practical guidance or factual information. Think “How do I set up a home office?” or “What’s the best CRM for a startup?” These questions are direct substitutes for traditional search.

For brands, this is where narrative control matters most. If an AI is asked about your industry and your brand isn’t included, your competitor just got free mindshare. To show up, your content must be current, authoritative, and formatted so LLMs can parse it.

With Yolando, teams run visibility gap queries to identify exactly which “Asking” prompts exclude them, and then fill those gaps with optimized, on-brand content.

2. Writing and content modification

Writing is the third-largest category overall and dominates work-related usage, making up 40% of workplace queries. But here’s the nuance: two-thirds of these writing requests aren’t for net-new text; they’re for modification of text users already provide.

This means users are pasting in contracts, reports, drafts, and marketing copy—and asking the model to refine it. For brands, this presents a hidden opportunity: if your content is well-structured and clear, it can become the source material that users bring into ChatGPT.

Yolando helps you Pinpoint these opportunities, ensuring that your brand voice and data influence not just what people read, but what they actively create.

3. Niche use cases: coding, multimedia, and more

Programming support (5.1% of usage) and multimedia tasks (7.3%) show ChatGPT’s versatility. But these remain secondary behaviors. For most brands, the near-term opportunity lies in text-based information and content generation, where the bulk of user intent lives.

A new user intent framework: Asking vs. Doing

The study introduces a powerful lens for understanding how people use ChatGPT.

What is the Asking, Doing, Expressing framework?

• Asking: seeking information or advice to make better decisions.
  
  

• Doing: asking the model to perform a task, such as drafting, editing, or coding.
  
  

• Expressing: sharing feelings or opinions without a defined outcome.

Nearly half of all queries are “Asking” (49%), and 40% are “Doing”. At work, “Doing” rises to 56% as professionals turn to AI for execution.

For brands, this split is critical. “Asking” queries resemble traditional search, where you need to be discoverable. “Doing” queries shape the content people actually produce, which means your data and positioning can echo through countless outputs.

Yolando helps teams build for both. With the Discoverability Dashboard, you see how you show up in “Asking” conversations. With the Action Center, you Generate structured, LLM-parsable content that fuels “Doing” tasks.

Why this matters: GEO is your next competitive moat

The job isn’t about climbing Google rankings anymore. It’s about being present in AI-generated answers. To compete, you need to monitor your visibility in both “Asking” and “Doing” queries, measure Share of Voice, and deploy GEO-optimized content to close gaps. Yolando makes this workflow seamless.

With billions of daily queries, AI platforms now define the customer journey. Your official content isn’t just competing in search—it’s competing to be the source of truth for both decision-making and creation. GEO is no longer optional; it’s the foundational capability that separates leaders from the laggards. Yolando gives you the command center to ensure your narrative is controlled, accurate, and amplified where decisions are being made.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

How can I track how my brand shows up on ChatGPT

Yolando tracks your brand’s visibility across AI platforms like ChatGPT, showing where and how your brand appears in AI-generated responses.

How can I improve my ranking on ChatGPT and other LLMs?

Yolando helps you optimize for AI visibility by analyzing where your brand appears, identifying missed opportunities, and guiding you to improve relevance and authority in AI answers.

Do I need to change my content strategy to better show up in AI Answers?

Yes, focus on structured, intent-based content that directly answers user questions and aligns with AI understanding, guided by insights from Yolando.

What is the most common work-related use of ChatGPT?

Writing dominates, accounting for 40% of work-related conversations.

How can brands measure if they show up in ‘Asking’ vs. ‘Doing’ queries?

Yolando’s Discoverability Dashboard surfaces which intents include your brand, and which don’t. This enables targeted GEO efforts to increase visibility across both.

How does ChatGPT’s scale compare to Google’s?

By June 2025, ChatGPT handled 2.6 billion queries per day—more than Google Search reached in its first decade.

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?

GEO is the practice of ensuring your brand is accurately represented in AI-generated answers. Unlike SEO, which focuses on ranking webpages, GEO ensures your brand narrative appears directly in conversations inside LLMs.

Sources

How People Use ChatGPT — Aaron Chatterji et al. — National Bureau of Economic Research — September 2025 — http://www.nber.org/papers/w34255