National · Future of work

OpenAI study finds AI use crossing occupational task boundaries

An analysis of more than 800,000 U.S. work-related ChatGPT messages found that 16.8% involved work associated with another occupation, rising to 43.5% after broadly shared tasks were excluded.

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OpenAI Economic Research reported on July 27, 2026 that 16.8% of work-related messages in a sample of more than 800,000 U.S. ChatGPT messages concerned tasks associated with an occupation other than the user's. After generic activities such as writing, summarizing, and scheduling were excluded, the outside-occupation share was 43.5%.