OpenAI is considering adding a new privacy feature to ChatGPT encryption. This move aims to address user concerns and legal pressures regarding data privacy. The potential new feature would likely start with temporary chats before being rolled out more broadly.
Here are the key points:
- Privacy Concerns: Currently, conversations on ChatGPT are not encrypted. This means OpenAI can access them, and they can be retained for up to 30 days or longer for legal reasons. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has stated he is “strongly considering” adding encryption to ChatGPT chats.
- The Lawsuit: The push for encryption is in response to a lawsuit from The New York Times, which has brought the lack of user privacy and data handling practices into public focus.
- Encrypted Chats: While a definite timeline for implementation is not provided, this move would bring ChatGPT’s security in line with other privacy-focused AI chatbots like Proton’s Lumo, which already offer end-to-end encryption.
ChatGPT Users
User Base Growth: ChatGPT has seen explosive growth, with weekly active users reaching 800 million in 2025, a significant jump from 400 million in February 2025. It also processes over 1 billion queries daily.
Demographics: The majority of users (53.24%) are between 18 and 34 years old, with mid-career professionals (35-54) making up a substantial portion at 32.77%. The U.S. and India are the top two countries for traffic.
Data Leakage and Confidentiality Risks
Sensitive Information: The biggest risk is when users input sensitive data, such as personal identifiable information (PII), financial details, passwords, or company trade secrets, into a chat. Even if OpenAI doesn’t explicitly train on this data for business customers, it can be accidentally exposed.
Lack of Encryption: While OpenAI uses encryption for data at rest and in transit, user conversations are not end-to-end encrypted like on platforms like Signal. This means OpenAI and its service providers could theoretically access and review your chats.
Unintentional Exposure: There have been past incidents where a bug in ChatGPT briefly showed users the chat history of other users, demonstrating the risks of data exposure.
This feature is likely to start with “temporary chats” to address user privacy concerns. A recent privacy oversight by OpenAI led to thousands of private ChatGPT conversations becoming publicly accessible and indexed by search engines like Google. The exposure was not a data breach, but a result of a now-removed “Share” feature that allowed users to manually opt-in to make their chats “discoverable” by search engines.
Income and Financials
Revenue: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has seen its annualized revenue skyrocket, hitting an estimated $12 billion in 2025. The company is reportedly generating about $1 billion in revenue per month, with the bulk coming from ChatGPT subscriptions, enterprise sales, and API usage fees.
Valuation: The company’s valuation has also surged, with recent talks suggesting a value of up to $500 billion, following a $300 billion valuation earlier in 2025.
Profitability: Despite the massive revenue, OpenAI is not yet profitable due to significant operating costs, with a projected cash burn of $8 billion in 2025, largely for infrastructure, specialized chips, and talent acquisition.
