Apr 23, 2025 5 min read

ChatGPT 800M, AI Haters, Life Coach, AI Hiring Blockade

Dialog: Exchange Number 24

Thinking Out Loud

ChatGPT 800 Million?: OpenAI is forecasting $125 billion in annual revenue by 2029 against the backdrop of massive growth. The company has publicly said ChatGPT has 500 million weekly active users. Others, drawing inferences, have speculated the number is closer to 800 million. OpenAI previously stated its 2025 user target is one billion users. Gemini's target is 500 million; it currently has 350 million users. But for Google's brand and reach, Gemini wouldn't see this kind of adoption. Google has network advantages ChatGPT does not – hence the latter's interest in buying Chrome should the federal court order divestiture. ChatGPT has also approached Samsung about a partnership, following its deal with Apple.

Local AI Search: According to new survey data from IPSOS, 76% of US adults are at least somewhat familiar with AI, an increase from 69% six months earlier. Almost half of respondents (45%) use these tools either "often" or "sometimes," up from 42% in 2024. Informational search (59%), product search and local search (28%) are the most common consumer use cases. This is just the latest data to suggest that a percentage of (informational) search usage is migrating to AI.

Can Siri Claw Back?: There has been a shakeup in Apple's Siri organization. VisionPro lead Mike Rockwell is now the head of engineering. According to Bloomberg, he's implementing a major organizational restructuring as Siri continues to fall behind ChatGPT and now Perplexity, and soon Claude, in the increasingly crowded voice assistant market. Apple has failed to deliver on the promise of an improved Siri using Apple Intelligence. The delays and inflated promises about Apple Intelligence and Siri have damaged Apple's brand credibility and perception. Mike Rockwell is a very smart and capable executive, though VisionPro is a technical marvel but a failed consumer product.

Growing AI Divide

Pew Research Center has found a major divide between how AI "experts" (n=1K) and the general US adult population (n=5.4K) see the future. According to the survey, experts are much more optimistic about AI and the future, while the public is now more anxious and worried: 76% of experts believe AI will benefit them personally vs. only 24% of the public. The core of the general public's anxiety is about jobs, a legitimate fear. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of general survey respondents expect AI to widely kill jobs, although the expert number isn't that far behind (39%). Both groups share concerns about AI-enabled misinformation, as well as doubts about the ability of governments to regulate AI. And there's a gender gap within both populations; men are generally 2x more positive than women about AI. The survey was conducted in Q3 last year. Pew surveys show a steady rise in public concern about AI. In 2021, 37% of adults were more concerned than excited about AI. That number grew to 51% in 2024, reflecting a continuing erosion of optimism. By comparison, Dialog has found in both B2C and B2B contexts that the more people have used AI the less afraid they are of it.

Public vs. Expert AI Perception Sentiments

NEWS & NOTEWORTHY

Are Patch (yes, Patch) AI newsletters the future of local news?
AI-enabled smart glasses are a legit post-smartphone platform.
ChatGPT o3 and o4 mini getting much better at search.
AI changing MBA education and the MBA itself.
Accenture: fully AI utilization requires organizational reinvention.
Home services AI startup says it improves call-center conversions.
Why the AI revolution is more "democratic" than anticipated.
The rise of the AI-enabled strategic marketing analyst.
This illustrates the AI threat to legacy SaaS vendors (more here).
Gemini now the solid number two in the market.
Google DeepMind report on AGI: the existential threats are real.
SMB trends to be aware of but data age/quality uneven.

AI: From Tech Tool to Life Coach

A recent study claims to capture "How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025." This follows a similar report last year and the differences between the two are striking. A major caveat is the methodology, which is largely anecdotal and subjective, relying heavily on discussions and examples in Reddit and Quora, as well as "relevant articles." So it may not be entirely reflective of what's going on. But it's still provocative. In 2024 the top use cases were largely technical or work-related. However the 2025 top use cases are more about personal and professional development. Therapy (and companionship) is the top use case, followed by what might be considered life coaching in the second and third positions. The second half of the top 10 has a few of the earlier work-related and technical uses but personal development has crowded most of them out. The report also discusses how some users are becoming increasingly sophisticated about LLMs but that there's a high degree of pro/con polarization in the forums.

Top 10 Generative AI Use Cases (2024 vs. 2025)

Source: Filtered.com, as featured in Harvard Business Review (HBR)

AI Hiring Blockade

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, a few weeks ago, sent out an internal memo telling managers that before requesting additional headcount they had to prove their objectives couldn't be accomplished with AI. In other words, Lutke is creating a burden to justify new hires by showing how AI can't do the job in question. There are a number of things going on here. There has been active employee resistance in some companies to AI adoption. With this directive, Lutke is effectively forcing employees to start using or increase their usage of AI tools. He's also "virtue signaling" to investors that he's serious about controlling costs. And he probably genuinely believes AI is a force multiplier that can eliminate FTEs. There have been nearly 500,000 tech company layoffs since 2023. While these are not all directly tied to the growth of AI, these employees will not be replaced – largely because of AI. We predict this "try AI first" imperative will become common in public companies, as well as private companies trying to save money.