It’s been three years since ChatGPT first launched. Posted on : Dec 01 - 2025

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI introduced a seemingly modest new product, describing it only as “a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way.”

In the years since, ChatGPT has reshaped the tech and business landscape. It became hugely popular — still holding the top spot in Apple’s free app rankings — and sparked a wave of generative AI tools. It has even inspired distrust of the em dash, which I refuse to relinquish.

Some observers say the impact goes far beyond technology. In a recent TechCrunch interview, Empire of AI author Karen Hao argued that OpenAI has “already grown more powerful than pretty much any nation-state,” and is now “rewiring our geopolitics, all of our lives.”

Others see the transformation in cultural terms. Charlie Warzel wrote in The Atlantic that we now live in “the world ChatGPT built” — one defined by a constant sense of uncertainty. Young people face a job market with no predictable path, he noted, while older generations are warned that the skills they’ve honed may no longer apply.

Optimists, of course, see a prosperous AI-driven future — and some stand to benefit immensely. Yet even AI’s biggest champions are waiting to see how it all plays out, in part because generative AI is never considered “finished.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg highlighted ChatGPT’s outsized effect on the stock market: Nvidia has been the standout winner, its stock soaring 979% since the chatbot’s debut. Other tech giants have surged as well. Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Broadcom now represent nearly half of the S&P 500’s 64% rise since ChatGPT launched and account for 35% of its total weighting — far above the roughly 20% share they held three years ago.

The question now is how long this growth can continue. Many AI leaders — Jensen Huang aside — increasingly acknowledge that we may be in a bubble. “Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in August. Sierra CEO and OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor echoed the sentiment, likening the moment to the dot-com boom: while some companies will fail, he said, AI will ultimately transform the economy and generate enormous long-term value.

In another three years — or perhaps much sooner — we may know whether that optimism was justified.