DALL·E Statistics: Usage, Images Generated & Market Share
DALL·E: ~916M cumulative images from DALL·E 2 (2023 baseline), ~24.4% user-preference share for OpenAI image tools, succeeded by GPT-4o native image generation in March 2025.
DALL·E was the model that introduced mainstream audiences to text-to-image AI. DALL·E 2’s September 2022 public launch pushed global AI image volume to ~2 million images per day, and DALL·E 3’s ChatGPT integration gave OpenAI the largest distribution channel in the category. In March 2025 OpenAI retired the DALL·E pipeline inside ChatGPT in favor of GPT-4o native image generation.
Key statistics
Everypixel Journal’s 2023 baseline analysis counted approximately 916 million images generated with DALL·E 2 over the platform’s lifetime.
OpenAI’s image tools rank second in AI image generator preference surveys at 24.4%, behind Midjourney’s 26.8%.
DALL·E 2’s public launch in September 2022 established the first measurable baseline of global AI image generation: roughly 2 million images per day.
DALL·E generated an estimated 5+ million images daily in 2024 through ChatGPT, the API, and Microsoft integrations (Bing, Copilot, Designer).
OpenAI replaced DALL·E 3 in ChatGPT with GPT-4o native image generation, which generated 700M+ images in its first week.
DALL·E version history and what each release changed
Each DALL·E generation roughly 10x’d the audience of the previous one: a research demo in 2021, 1.5 million beta users in 2022, ChatGPT’s ~100 million weekly users in 2023, then full replacement by GPT-4o native generation in 2025.
| Release | Date | Reach | What it changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| DALL·E (research) | Jan 2021 | Demo only | Coined large-scale text-to-image transformers |
| DALL·E 2 | Apr–Sep 2022 | 1.5M+ users in 2 months of open beta | First mainstream AI image tool; ~2M images/day |
| DALL·E 3 | Oct 2023 | ChatGPT’s ~100M weekly users | Conversational generation inside ChatGPT and Bing |
| GPT-4o native images | Mar 2025 | ChatGPT’s full user base | Retired the DALL·E pipeline; 700M images in week one |
Release dates and reach figures from OpenAI announcement posts; image volumes from Everypixel Journal and Axis Intelligence.
How did DALL·E shape the AI image market?
DALL·E set the milestones the rest of the industry measured itself against: the first mainstream waitlist, the first public API from a frontier lab, and the first chatbot-integrated image model.
OpenAI announced the original DALL·E in January 2021, coining the category of large-scale text-to-image transformers.
Within two months of opening its beta in mid-2022, DALL·E 2 had over 1.5 million users generating more than 2 million images per day.
DALL·E 3 shipped natively inside ChatGPT Plus, making conversational image generation available to ChatGPT’s then ~100M weekly users.
How we compiled this data
DALL·E numbers are easier to source than most: OpenAI published launch metrics for each generation, and Everypixel Journal independently counted DALL·E 2 output (~916M images). We use OpenAI’s announcement posts for dates and reach, and third-party counts for volume, flagging where the two disagree. Last full review: June 12, 2026.
Before you cite these numbers
- The 916M cumulative count covers DALL·E 2 only, through August 2023. There is no public cumulative figure for DALL·E 3, which likely generated several times more via ChatGPT.
- The 24.4% preference share measures OpenAI image tools as a lineage; surveys taken since March 2025 increasingly reflect GPT-4o, not classic DALL·E.
- DALL·E 3 daily volumes (~5M+/day in 2024) include Microsoft surfaces (Bing, Copilot, Designer), which Microsoft has never broken out separately.
Frequently asked questions
How many images did DALL·E generate?
DALL·E 2 users generated approximately 916 million images per Everypixel Journal’s 2023 analysis, and DALL·E continued at an estimated 5+ million images daily through 2024 via ChatGPT, the API, and Microsoft products before being succeeded by GPT-4o in March 2025.
Is DALL·E discontinued?
Inside ChatGPT, DALL·E 3 was replaced by GPT-4o native image generation in March 2025. The DALL·E lineage continues through the GPT Image API models.
What is DALL·E’s market share?
OpenAI’s image tools hold roughly 24.4% user-preference share, second behind Midjourney at 26.8% - though ChatGPT distribution gives OpenAI by far the largest casual-user reach.
Sources
Figures on this page are compiled from the following publishers and reports. Where sources disagree, we present the range and note the methodology difference.