OpenAI Releases OpenAI Signals Data Examining Work Activities of Individual ChatGPT Users

OpenAI has published 'OpenAI Signals' data, revealing how individual users employ ChatGPT for work-related purposes. The dataset, which examines 165 different work activities across nearly 100 countries, offers the ability to analyze the position of artificial intelligence in the global workforce and its evolution over time.

The published data covers a wide range of work processes, from preparing teaching materials to developing marketing content, programming, and analyzing business data. The study, associated with 165 categories referred to as Intermediate Work Activities (IWA), covers the period from the first quarter of 2025 to the third quarter of 2026 on a quarterly basis.

In the 74 countries observed in the research, the average share of the 10 most common work activities within classified work messages decreased from 56.0% in the first quarter of 2025 to 51.1% in the third quarter of 2026. The study, which only covers work messages from individual plans, did not include enterprise messages or Codex usage. To protect user privacy, it was reported that conversations were not read by researchers and were classified by automated systems after personal information was removed.