What did OpenAI release on October 26?
OpenAI released version 3.0 of its Signals data on October 26, 2026, along with a report called ChatGPT’s expanding world of work. The numbers show people now use ChatGPT more for advice than for writing. Writing fell from 34.1% of consumer requests in July 2024 to 21.4% in September 2026.
The data comes from automated classification of 1 million consumer ChatGPT messages a month, sent by adults, over 27 months. No person reads the messages; a model sorts them into topics. PPC Land went through all 24 spreadsheets and published the topic breakdown on October 27. OpenAI's own page focused on work: it maps work requests to 165 job activities across nearly 100 countries, and Blockchain.news reported that the ten most common activities fell from 56.0% of work messages in Q1 2025 to 51.1% in Q3 2026. Use is spreading out.
One limit up front. The files cover individual ChatGPT plans only. Enterprise accounts and Codex are excluded, so business use is understated.
What are people asking ChatGPT now?
Practical guidance is the largest category at 28.1% of requests, and seeking information grew to 20.2%. Practical guidance means how-to advice, tutoring, ideas and health questions. Seeking information covers facts, recipes and questions about products or services you can buy.
| Topic | July 2024 | September 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practical guidance | 26.1% | 28.1% | +2.0 pts |
| Writing | 34.1% | 21.4% | -12.7 pts |
| Seeking information | 16.7% | 20.2% | +3.5 pts |
| Multimedia (images and other media) | 2.0% | 8.8% | +6.8 pts |
| Technical help (coding, math, data) | 13.5% | 4.6% | -8.9 pts |
Source: OpenAI Signals v3.0, as tabulated by PPC Land. The direction matches the NBER paper OpenAI published with Harvard and Duke economists in 2025, which found non-work messages had grown past 70% of consumer use.
The age split matters if you sell to homeowners and business owners. In September 2026, seeking information was 26.7% of requests from users aged 55 to 64 and 24.2% for ages 45 to 54, against 17.3% for 18 to 24 year olds. Older buyers use it most like a search engine.
Why should a business owner who runs ads care?
Your customers are asking ChatGPT the questions they used to type into Google or ask a salesperson: how much a roof repair costs, which med spa treatment fits, what to ask a contractor. Whoever wrote the clearest answer gets quoted. A business with thin pages gets skipped.
That is also where OpenAI is taking its ad business. On October 21, OpenAI said ChatGPT ads now run in 89 countries and more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns. Product and service questions sit inside the seeking information category, which is the closest thing in this data to search intent. OpenAI does not split out how many requests are product questions, so nobody outside the company knows that number yet.
I've been running ads since 2013, and every channel shift looks the same at the start. The early people get cheap attention because the answers and the ads are thin. That window is open right now for local service businesses.
What should you do this month?
Write down the ten questions customers ask before they buy, and publish a short, direct answer to each one on your site. Then make sure the lead that comes out of that research gets answered fast, because a prospect who just read three AI answers about you will call or text the first business that looks credible.
- Pull the top ten questions from your call logs, texts and sales calls. Use the customer's words, not yours.
- Answer each one in the first two sentences of its own page or section, with a real price range, timeline or rule where you can give one.
- Add the proof AI tools look for: reviews, hours, service area and real photos. Our guide on getting more Google reviews on autopilot covers the review side.
- Ask ChatGPT those same ten questions about your city and see who gets named. That is your competition now.
- Check how fast you answer the leads you already get. If calls go to voicemail after 5pm, the research your prospect did is wasted. Our missed call calculator puts a dollar number on it.
Where KenjiAI fits
KenjiAI answers the call or text that comes after the research. Our Voice AI agents pick up every inbound call, qualify the caller and book the appointment on your calendar, and Conversation AI does the same over SMS and chat. Review requests go out automatically after each job, so the next person who asks ChatGPT about you finds proof. We've built this for 500+ businesses.
What is still unclear in the data?
Three things. The data excludes business accounts, so work use is undercounted. The categories come from a model reading messages, not from users describing themselves. And OpenAI does not publish how many requests are about buying something, which is the number advertisers want most.
Watch for two things next: whether OpenAI splits product questions out in a future Signals release, and how ChatGPT ad prices move as more advertisers pile in. In the meantime, the work is the same as it was for Google ten years ago. Answer the real questions clearly, collect reviews, and pick up the phone. If you want help setting up the answering side, book a call with us.