ChatGPT Usage Data: Writing Falls to 21% as Advice Takes Over
OpenAI's new ChatGPT usage data shows writing fell to 21.4% of consumer requests while advice and information now make up nearly half. Here is what that means for brands in India.
Writing used to be the main reason people opened ChatGPT. It isn’t any more. OpenAI’s new ChatGPT usage data, released on 26 October 2026, shows writing fell from 34.1% of consumer requests in July 2024 to 21.4% in September 2026, while advice and information requests now make up nearly half of everything people ask.
For marketers, that changes the job. ChatGPT is turning into the place people go to decide, and your brand either shows up in that decision or it doesn’t.
What did OpenAI’s new ChatGPT usage data actually show?
OpenAI’s Signals v3.0 data shows ChatGPT moving from a writing tool to an advice and answer engine. Between July 2024 and September 2026, practical guidance rose to 28.1% of consumer requests and seeking information rose from 16.7% to 20.2%, while writing dropped to 21.4% and technical help fell from 13.5% to 4.6%.
The release is part of OpenAI Signals, the public dataset run by OpenAI’s Economic Research and Global Affairs teams. Version 3.0 samples one million consumer messages a month, according to the README as reported by PPC Land. Practical guidance has been the top category every month since March 2025.
21.4%of ChatGPT consumer requests were writing in September 2026, down from 34.1% in July 2024
20.2%were seeking information, a bucket that includes questions about products to buy
31.4%of Indian requests were practical guidance in Q3 2026, up from 27.0%
The work side tells the same story. Making decisions and solving problems was 21.6% of US work requests in Q1 2026, the biggest single activity. Requests to provide consultation and advice climbed from 5.5% to 9.0% in a year.
Are Indian users treating ChatGPT like a search engine?
Indian users are shifting faster towards advice than most markets. In OpenAI’s country data, India’s writing share fell from 28.7% in Q3 2024 to 19.7% in Q3 2026, ranking 94th of 137 countries, while practical guidance rose from 27.0% to 31.4%. Indians ask ChatGPT what to do more than they ask it to write.
The “seeking information” label matters most for brands. OpenAI’s classifier puts three things in it: specific facts, purchasable products and recipes. A prompt like “best washing machine under 30,000 for a family of four” lands here. OpenAI doesn’t publish the product slice on its own, so nobody outside OpenAI knows exactly how big it is.
Our maths: what 1,000 prompts look like now
We turned the shares into counts so the shift is easier to picture. The figures are rounded from the published percentages.
| Per 1,000 requests | Before | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global: writing plus technical help (Jul 2024 vs Sep 2026) | 476 | 260 | -216 |
| Global: practical guidance plus seeking information | 428 | 483 | +55 |
| India: writing (Q3 2024 vs Q3 2026) | 287 | 197 | -90 |
| India: practical guidance | 270 | 314 | +44 |
Put simply, roughly half of all ChatGPT requests now ask for an answer or a recommendation. Many of those are moments where a buyer is choosing a laptop, a loan, a school or an agency.
Half of ChatGPT is now a recommendation engine. Most brands still treat it as a copywriting tool.
Why does the move from writing to advice matter for your brand?
Advice prompts produce a shortlist, and a shortlist has winners and losers. When someone asks ChatGPT which CRM suits a 10-person Pune startup, the answer names a few brands and skips the rest. If ChatGPT is where a growing share of decisions start, missing from those answers costs you sales you’ll never see in Search Console.
Money is following the behaviour. OpenAI took ChatGPT ads to 89 countries on 21 October 2026, PPC Land reported, and self-serve buying has been open in India since 31 August. Our ChatGPT ads tracker logs every change. Paid placement now sits next to the organic answer, much like Google a decade ago.
What the data can’t tell you
Don’t over-read it. These are shares, not volumes. ChatGPT’s user base has grown so much that writing requests could be rising in absolute terms even as their share falls. The data also excludes enterprise accounts and Codex, and OpenAI’s own documentation says business use is probably underrepresented.
Allyson Wehn of research firm Mfour argued in June that Signals shows how people use ChatGPT but not what they do next. That’s fair, though Mfour sells a rival panel. PPC Land’s Luis Rijo points out the release says nothing about advertising. Nobody can yet link an advice prompt to a purchase.
Watch the labels: “writing” means different things in different Signals tables. The consumer topic share (21.4%) and the work activity “edit written materials” (about 15%) aren’t comparable. Quote the right one in your client deck.
How do you get your brand into ChatGPT’s advice answers?
Start by finding out whether ChatGPT recommends you today, then fix the pages it learns from. Run your category’s real buying questions, note which brands appear, and publish clear comparison, pricing and use-case content that answers those questions directly. Track AI referrals separately so you can see whether it works.
- Write 20 advice prompts. Use how your buyers actually talk, including Hinglish and city names: “best CA firm in Indore for GST filing”.
- Run them monthly in ChatGPT. Log who gets named, in what order, and which sources are cited.
- Fill the gaps. If a rival keeps winning, read the pages ChatGPT cites and publish a better answer. Our AI search optimisation guide covers the page structure.
- Measure it. Set up Microsoft Clarity’s AI visibility report and a GA4 channel group for chatgpt.com referrals.
PingTalks verdict
This is the clearest signal yet that ChatGPT has become a decision tool. B2C brands in considered categories, such as electronics, finance, education and travel, should audit their AI visibility this month. Local service businesses that win on Google Maps can wait a quarter. Teams still using ChatGPT data only to justify AI copywriting budgets are reading the wrong chart. Pair this with Google’s push: AI Overviews already appear on most commercial keywords.
What to do now
- List 20 buying questions in your category and run them in ChatGPT today.
- Record which brands ChatGPT names and which pages it cites.
- Publish one comparison or pricing page that answers your top missed prompt.
- Add a chatgpt.com referral segment in GA4 before November reporting.
Frequently asked questions
What is OpenAI Signals?
OpenAI Signals is a public dataset from OpenAI’s Economic Research and Global Affairs teams that reports how ChatGPT is used, by topic, country and activity. It uses automated classification, aggregation and differential privacy, so no individual conversations are read or released.
What share of ChatGPT use is writing now?
Writing was 21.4% of ChatGPT consumer requests in September 2026, down from 34.1% in July 2024, according to Signals v3.0 as reported by PPC Land. Practical guidance has been the largest category every month since March 2025.
Does the data include questions about products?
Yes. OpenAI’s seeking information category covers specific information, purchasable products, and cooking and recipes. OpenAI does not publish the product share on its own.
Does the Signals data include ChatGPT Enterprise use?
No. It covers consumer Free, Go, Plus and Pro accounts and excludes enterprise and Codex usage. OpenAI says business use is likely underrepresented as a result.
How can a brand check whether ChatGPT recommends it?
Write 20 real buying questions for your category, run them in ChatGPT every month, and log which brands and source pages appear. Then improve or publish the pages that answer the prompts you are missing, and track chatgpt.com referrals in GA4.
Sources
- OpenAI Signals: data and methodology
- OpenAI Signals: data download
- OpenAI Signals global report (PDF)
- PPC Land: Writing drops from 34% to 21% of ChatGPT requests since July 2024
- PPC Land: Americans use ChatGPT at work most to make decisions
- PPC Land: ChatGPT ads reach 89 countries
- Mfour: OpenAI Signals, what it is and what it was not built to do
Kousik BhattacharyaEditor, PingTalks
Digital Evangelist and Entrepreneur at Clickseek Digital. A results-oriented marketing leader with an 18+ year track record driving transformative growth for diverse global businesses. Expert in performance marketing, demand generation, customer acquisition, strategic partnerships, and market expansion within B2B SaaS, Consumer-Tech, Fintech, Travel/Hospitality, and CRM/ITES Solutions sectors. IIM alumnus with a strong analytical background and a string of accolades, including "Top 50 Most Influential E-Commerce Professional of India" and "Top 100 Digital Marketer of India."
