OpenAI Says ChatGPT Users Are Increasingly Taking On Tasks From Other Professions
Key Takeaways
- •OpenAI analyzed more than 800,000 work-related ChatGPT messages to study how employees use the tool for job-specific tasks.
- •The company found that 43.5% of job-specific queries involved work normally linked to another profession.
- •Marketing and engineering were the categories where task crossover appeared most frequently.
- •OpenAI said smaller companies showed a stronger pattern, likely because they are less likely to have dedicated specialist teams.
- •The analysis excluded common workplace tasks such as writing, summarizing, and scheduling.
OpenAI says more workers are using ChatGPT for tasks that fall outside their own professions, a pattern the company describes as "task crossover."
In an analysis of more than 800,000 work-related ChatGPT messages, OpenAI found that 43.5 percent of job-specific queries involved work associated with another profession. The company said marketing and engineering tasks crossed over most often.
According to OpenAI, users are increasingly handling work that was previously more likely to be assigned to specialists, including contract reviews, data analysis, and website troubleshooting. The company said the pattern is more pronounced at smaller companies, where dedicated specialist teams are less common.
The findings add to a broader workplace debate over whether generative AI is primarily automating tasks, augmenting employees, or redistributing work across roles. OpenAI’s data focuses on messages sent to ChatGPT rather than formal changes in staffing, pay, or job titles, so it offers a view into how workers are using the tool rather than a full measure of labor-market impact.
OpenAI described the usage data as an early indication that job profiles may be changing before formal job titles or job descriptions reflect those changes. The company classified tasks using the U.S. occupational database O*NET, which maps work activities to standardized job profiles and is commonly used for comparing skills, tasks, and occupations.
OpenAI said it excluded common workplace tasks such as writing, summarizing, and scheduling from the analysis. The company published the findings in an official post titled "How AI is expanding what people do at work".