ChatGPT registers huge surge in traffic as schools (and classes) resume — ChatGPT 4.1 mini helps OpenAI to record highs as daily token generation reaches a staggering 78 billion (www.techradar.com)

ChatGPT traffic spiked as schools reopened in September 2025, with OpenRouter reporting a record 78.3 billion tokens on September 18 — up sharply from a June low of about 36.7 billion tokens during summer break and roughly matching May’s exam-driven highs (~80B/day). OpenRouter’s dataset, covering ~2.5 million users, shows clear seasonal cycles that mirror academic calendars and aligns with prior studies linking student activity to LLM usage. On that peak day, model-level breakdowns highlighted ChatGPT 4.1 Mini as the single largest contributor (26.9B tokens), followed by the newly launched GPT‑5 (18.7B) and other minis like GPT‑4o Mini and GPT‑5 Mini pulling notable shares. For the AI/ML community, the spike underscores education as a major, predictable demand driver with practical implications for capacity planning, cost modeling and product strategy. The dominance of “mini” variants suggests users — especially students — prefer lower-latency, cheaper models for routine writing, research and study help, shaping priorities around efficiency and inference-cost optimization. The pattern also intensifies debates on academic integrity, curriculum design, and responsible AI literacy: researchers, educators and operators will need scalable moderation, provenance tools and pedagogical frameworks to integrate LLMs without undermining learning outcomes.