Three years ago yesterday, OpenAI dropped ChatGPT with the most low-key description imaginable — “a model that interacts in a conversational way.”
But what they actually launched was a digital earthquake that rattled tech, business, geopolitics, and basically every industry with a pulse. And yeah… none of us have stopped talking about it since.
So what actually happened between that quiet launch in 2022 and the absolutely wild AI ecosystem we’re living in now?
For starters, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app of all time and somehow still sits at the top of Apple’s free charts three years later.
And according to “Empire of AI” author Karen Hao, OpenAI is now “more powerful than pretty much any nation-state in the world.”
And yes, that's no hyperbole. This one model changed how governments strategize, how companies build products, how students study, how executives make decisions — everything.
Not bad for a chatbot that started life answering math questions and writing breakup texts, huh?
But the biggest aftershock wasn’t cultural, it was financial.
Once ChatGPT hit the scene, Nvidia’s stock didn’t just go up; it went 979% up, turning GPUs into the new oil.
And the Magnificent Seven — Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom — basically carried the entire stock market on their backs. Together, they’re responsible for almost half of the S&P 500’s gains since ChatGPT launched.
Translation: AI didn’t just move markets… it became the market.
And this is where things get spicy.
Even the people steering the generative-AI rocketship are like, “Hey, maybe this is a little too much euphoria.”
Sam Altman warned that “someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI,” and Bret Taylor flat-out called it a “bubble.”
But then he immediately followed it with, “AI will transform the economy.”
So yeah, classic tech moment: panic and optimism doing a little tango.
Meanwhile, the workforce? Totally rattled.
Charlie Warzel from The Atlantic calls this era “the world ChatGPT built,” where everyone feels like they’re constantly waiting for the next big drop — a new model, a new capability, a new disruption. Young workers wonder which jobs will still exist; older workers wonder if the jobs they spent decades mastering still matter. And because AI is never in its “final form,” that uncertainty just keeps going.
So as we hit the three-year mark, the real question isn’t if AI will reshape the next decade, it’s how fast, and who gets swept up, boosted, or blindsided along the way.
Because if the last three years felt like the future on fast-forward… the next three are going to feel like someone hit the skip intro button on the entire world.
One thing’s for sure: the pace isn’t slowing down — because it hasn’t once since November 30, 2022.
