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State of AI · Index
State of AI in 2022
The year ChatGPT arrived. For most of 2022 AI was a back-office tool used by about half of organizations — then a 30 November research preview reset the entire trajectory of the field. Every figure is linked to its primary source and dated.
Key takeaways
- Organizational AI adoption was roughly 50% — a level that had stayed flat for five years and was dominated by traditional machine learning. (McKinsey 2022)
- OpenAI launched ChatGPT on 30 November 2022 as a free research preview — the inflection point for the whole field. (OpenAI)
- ChatGPT reached an estimated 100 million monthly users in two months — the fastest consumer-app uptake on record. (Reuters / UBS)
- Global private AI investment fell in 2022 versus 2021, mirroring the broader tech-funding pullback. (Stanford HAI)
~50%
Nov 30
100M
Adoption stayed flat — for now
McKinsey’s The State of AI in 2022 reported that organizational AI adoption had “stabilized” at roughly 50% after climbing from about 20% in 2017. The technologies in use were predominantly traditional machine-learning models for fraud detection, demand forecasting, and customer-service routing — not the generative tools that would dominate the following years (McKinsey).
The generative-AI breakthroughs
Even before ChatGPT, 2022 was a banner year for generative AI. DALL·E 2 entered limited access in April; Stable Diffusion open-weights launched in August; Midjourney exited closed beta over the summer. Image generation went mainstream months ahead of text. Then on 30 November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT as a free research preview — and the conversation shifted permanently. A UBS analyst note widely cited by Reuters estimated ChatGPT reached ~100 million monthly active users in January 2023, the fastest consumer-app uptake on record (Reuters, citing a UBS analyst note).
Investment cooled from its 2021 peak
Stanford HAI’s AI Index 2023 found that global private AI investment fell in 2022 versus 2021, mirroring the broader tech-funding pullback. The 2022 number would later look small — by 2024 corporate AI investment hit $252.3B — but it set the baseline against which the post-ChatGPT surge would be measured (Stanford HAI, AI Index 2023).
“2022 was the year generative AI became commercially viable — and reset the entire trajectory of the field.”
The numbers in full
| Indicator | 2022 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Organizations using AI (≥1 function) | ~50% | McKinsey |
| ChatGPT launch | 30 Nov 2022 | OpenAI |
| ChatGPT monthly users (by Jan 2023) | ~100M | Reuters / UBS |
| Global private AI investment | Down vs 2021 | Stanford HAI |
Frequently asked
How many organizations were using AI in 2022?
About 50% — a level that had been roughly flat for five years — according to McKinsey’s State of AI in 2022. (McKinsey)
When did ChatGPT launch?
OpenAI launched ChatGPT as a free research preview on 30 November 2022. (OpenAI)
How fast did ChatGPT grow?
A UBS analyst note widely cited by Reuters estimated ChatGPT reached ~100 million monthly active users by January 2023 — about two months after launch, the fastest consumer-app uptake on record. (Reuters / UBS)
Cite this page
The AI Index (2026). State of AI in 2022 — The Year ChatGPT Arrived. Retrieved Jun 20, 2026, from report-ai.org/indexes/state-of-ai/state-of-ai-2022/
Related years: 2023 · 2024 · 2025 · Full timeline 2022–2026
On this page
Primary sources
- McKinsey — State of AI in 2022 · ~50% org adoption, flat 5 yrs
- Reuters / UBS — ChatGPT growth, Feb 2023 · ~100M MAU in 2 months
- Stanford HAI — AI Index 2023 · private AI investment fell vs 2021
100M
ChatGPT monthly users within two months of launch — the fastest consumer-app uptake on record.
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