Articles · October 2026
How fast is this moving, really?
It is fair to be skeptical of “everything is changing” talk. So here is the assistant era as a timeline of checkable facts, and you can judge the slope for yourself.
The timeline
November 30, 2022. OpenAI releases ChatGPT, a free chatbot, almost as an experiment.
January 2023. Analysts at UBS estimate it already has 100 million monthly users — calling it the fastest-growing consumer application they had ever measured (reported by Reuters). For scale: TikTok took about nine months to reach the same mark; this took about two.
2023 to 2025. The Pew Research Center finds the share of U.S. adults who have used ChatGPT roughly doubling, from 18% in 2023 to 34% in 2025 — and 58% among adults under 30 (Pew Research Center). Assistants stop being a tech-industry hobby and become a household habit.
2025. Google reports its AI answers reach more than two billion people a month. OpenAI says ChatGPT now has roughly 800 million weekly users. And in September 2025, assistants cross the line from answering to acting, with buying switched on inside ChatGPT.
Why this slope is different
The smartphone took a decade to rewire local business. Social media took most of another. This shift is compressing into years — sometimes months — because the assistant doesn’t need new hardware in anyone’s pocket. It arrived as software, on phones your customers already own, and it improves while everyone sleeps.
The owner-sized conclusion
None of this argues for panic, and none of it argues for chasing every new tool. It argues for sequence: be findable and readable by assistants now, be bookable by them next, and let your competitors volunteer to go last. Getting ready is a project measured in weeks, not a reinvention of your business. But “we’ll get to it” has a way of quietly becoming “we missed it” — the slope does not pause while a business decides.