Women send most of South Africa's ChatGPT messages. Between July and September 2026, 56.2% of messages South Africans sent to ChatGPT came from people with typically feminine first names, compared with 52.1% worldwide and 41.2% in Nigeria.
The shift has been fast. In the same period of 2024, the share was 47.9%, meaning men sent most South African messages just 2 years ago. The figures come from OpenAI's own Signals data, which we used for our look at how South Africa uses ChatGPT.
Insights on ChatGPT use by South African women
Women lead in almost every kind of use. Here is the share of South African messages in each topic that come from people with typically feminine names, compared with the global share, for July to September 2026.
What people use ChatGPT for | South Africa | Global |
|---|---|---|
Writing | 61.4% | 56.4% |
Self-expression, such as chat and personal reflection | 56.6% | 60.6% |
Practical guidance, such as how-to advice and tutoring | 55.8% | 53.5% |
Seeking information | 52.4% | 47.0% |
Multimedia, such as images | 51.8% | 50.7% |
Technical help, such as coding and maths | 39.1% | 37.7% |
Writing stands out most. It is already a bigger part of South African ChatGPT use than in most countries, at 27.1% of all local messages against 21.2% globally, and women send 61.4% of it. Technical help is the only category where men still send most messages, both here and around the world.
Across Africa, the picture varies widely: the feminine share is 52.8% in Kenya, 49.8% in Egypt and 47.5% in Ghana, while Nigeria, at 41.2%, is among the most male-leaning countries in the data. South Africa ranks 41st of 135 countries on this measure.
OpenAI does not ask users their gender, but it does classify messages by whether an account's first name is typically masculine or feminine, using only names that are linked to one gender more than 95% of the time, and the data covers consumer accounts of people aged 18 and over, not company accounts.
What others are saying about ChatGPT use by South African women
OpenAI's latest Signals release, published in late October, is the source of the data, which covers 1 million consumer messages a month. Globally, it shows the feminine share of ChatGPT messages rising from 43.0% in mid-2024 to 52.1% now, so the shift is worldwide, but South Africa moved earlier and further. In our look at search, the same data showed that South Africans use ChatGPT mainly as a work tool, and that the single biggest work task is editing documents.
The typical South African AI user is not who you think
The common picture of AI as a tool mostly used by men in tech does not fit South Africa. Here, the typical ChatGPT user is now more likely to be a woman, and the most common job she gives it is writing: rewriting, editing and drafting.
That matters for anyone building or selling AI products and training locally. Courses, apps and marketing aimed only at developers and technical teams are missing most of the people actually using these tools. The one gap is technical help, where women send under 40% of messages, and that is where AI training could make the biggest difference.
You might also like our piece on Claude vs ChatGPT in SA, learners using AI for exams, and SA's AI policy.
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