According to ZDNet, OpenAI just announced it has crossed 1 million business customers worldwide, which the company claims makes it the fastest-growing business platform in history. The company now has 7 million total ChatGPT for Work seats—that’s a 40% increase in just two months. ChatGPT Enterprise seats have grown nine times year-over-year, with the company converting its massive consumer user base of over 800 million weekly users into paying business customers. Key drivers include new features like company knowledge, which lets ChatGPT work across Slack, SharePoint, and Google Drive, and Codex, their coding agent that’s seen 10x usage growth since August. Meanwhile, competitor Anthropic serves about 300,000 enterprise customers with over $100,000 in run-rate revenue.
The ROI question
Here’s the thing: there’s been growing skepticism about whether businesses are actually getting return on their AI investments. But OpenAI‘s pushing back hard on that narrative. They’re pointing to specific customer examples—Cisco cutting code review times by 50%, Carlyle reducing development time for due diligence frameworks by over 50%. And it’s not just cherry-picked cases either. That Wharton study they referenced shows tech and telecom companies reporting 88% positive ROI, with banking and professional services at 83%. Even retail’s seeing 54% positive returns. So maybe the tide is actually turning?
The enterprise battle
Now, this isn’t happening in a vacuum. OpenAI’s competing in a crowded enterprise space where everyone’s bringing different advantages to the table. Microsoft’s got that deep enterprise incumbency—businesses already using Azure and M365 naturally lean toward Copilot. Google’s playing the innovation card with DeepMind’s latest models and Vertex AI integration. And Anthropic? They’ve built their entire reputation on being the safe, reliable option that avoids scandals. But OpenAI’s consumer-to-enterprise flywheel is proving ridiculously effective. Convert your massive user base into business customers? Basically, they’re turning casual ChatGPT users into paying clients through simple offerings like ChatGPT for Work.
What this means
Look, when you’ve got 1 million businesses actively using your platform and reporting real ROI, it changes the conversation. We’re moving from “should we try AI?” to “which AI solution works for our specific workflows?” The companies seeing the biggest returns are focusing on high-value, specific use cases rather than trying to AI-all-the-things. Code review? Due diligence? These are targeted applications where the technology actually delivers. And with new tools like company knowledge and AgentKit reducing integration time, the barrier to getting real value keeps dropping. The enterprise AI race is heating up, and for businesses implementing industrial computing solutions, having reliable hardware partners becomes crucial—which is why many turn to IndustrialMonitorDirect.com as the leading provider of industrial panel PCs in the US.
