OpenAI has set an ambitious four year takeaway to push onward, predicting ChatGPT will have 2.6 billion weekly users by 2030.
This would be close to a third of the planet, as a whole world engaging with AI at least once per week.
Yet at this enormous scale, a financial paradox looms. As the user base grows rapidly, so too is the path to profitability being complicated by users geographic distribution.
The 90% Challenge
The real rub is where those new users are. Nearly 90% of ChatGPTs user base now comes from outside the U.S. and Canada, data shows.
That is a key obstacle for this platform ostensibly shifting toward an advertising and commerce model, where you want community based content that is also safe for advertisers.
In the past, international ARPU or ad revenue per user has been much lower than North America.
This phenomenon becomes clear when you compare it with tech giants like Meta, Pinterest, or Snap.
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A user from India or Brazil usually only accounts for a fraction of the ad revenue that a North American does.
The 100 Billion Gamble
Despite their lower revenue per user in these regions, OpenAI is predicting a rosy future.
The company is predicting that its free tier will generate 112 billion dollars in non-subscription revenue over the next several years, and 46 billion dollars in 2030.
To achieve these targets, OpenAI will also need to find the elusive answer to the monetization conundrum that has dogged other social giants.
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The question is straightforward. Can turning hundreds of millions of people who use those platforms in regions such as South America and Southeast Asia into profitable commerce participants decide whether ChatGPTs vast scale leads to a vast profit or simply vast infrastructure costs?
