The highest use category for ChatGPT is «non-work-related» messages, according to the study of anonymized ChatGPT usage, having grown from 53% in June 2024 to 73% of all questions posed as of July 2025.
That means work-related queries during the same time frame was reduced from 47% to 27%.
Doesn’t count coding
This is interesting because of all the hype lately about AI taking entry-level jobs, especially in computer-related fields.
That number is however offset by the fact that most coding work happens outside of ChatGPT, namely in the Codex environment, and this study only concerns ChatGPT.
Practical guidance tops the list
The most used classification in the study is «Practical guidance,» «Seeking Information» and «Writing,» which make up 80% of the chatbot’s use.
«Practical Guidance,» which includes how-to-advice, tutoring, creative ideation and health and fitness topics, has stayed constant at 29% of use throughout the study.
«Writing,» which includes editing or critiques of texts, personal communication, translation and fiction writing, has declined over the past year from 36% to 24%.
And «Seeking information,» which is queries for specific information, sometimes on products, and includes cooking and recipes, increased from 14% to 24%.
Writing leads with professionals
As for work-related questions, «Technical help» declined from 12% of usage last July to 5% a year later, but this was also the time period when Codex was launched to take care of most of those tasks.
«Writing» was in fact the leader in work-related queries, accounting for some 40% of messages in July 2025, while «Practical Guidance» comes in second at 24%.
Also interesting is the fact that the non-work «Multimedia» category only grew from 2% during the period to some 7% — which they explain by March 2025’s image generation improvements. That is still a very low number, though, considering how much use Google’s Nano Banana gets.
Practical, personal stuff
So in short, while the study notes that ten percent of the world uses ChatGPT, fewer people than thought use it professionally —and most use it for practical stuff, writing and seeking specific information.
Not counting coding, of course. And the numbers for seeking information don’t precisely add up to a serious Google competitor.
Most people, in fact, use the chatbot for fairly trivial, personal stuff.
Read more: The new study by OpenAI, their blog post, writeup on Washington Post