From our perch within the analyst corps, one key question around any emerging tech is if average folks are using it… or even care about it. This question has come up for everything from mobile payments to virtual reality. The latest subjects of this thought exercise are generative and conversational AI.
New research from Pew sheds some light on this question, specifically around conversational AI like ChatGPT. Despite its prevalence as a topic in the tech press, it turns out that it’s much less popular among everyday consumers – to the tune of 18 percent of Americans that have actually used it.
Casual Encounters
Drilling down into demographics, ChatGPT is more popular among college-educated men, aged 18-29. As for use cases, most Chat GPT users in the survey reported using it for entertainment or educational reasons, as opposed to using it for work. Essentially people are playing with it somewhat casually.
Speaking of using conversational AI for work, this brings up one of the most prominent issues surrounding the tech: the fear around its human-replacement effects. There, 19 percent of survey respondents thought it would affect their job performance and 27 percent expect zero impact.
These occupational sentiments also varied by vertical. Those in information, technology, finance, and education expect AI to impact their job roles (though no indication of positive or negative feelings). Meanwhile, those working in hospitality, entertainment, and construction feel there will be little impact.
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Actual Impact
Stepping back, these figures can be seen in a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty way. On one hand, the usage – again 18 percent overall – is disproportionate to the hype surrounding AI. On the other hand, 18 percent ain’t bad for a technology that wasn’t really available nor widely known a year ago.
The bigger question is where it goes from here. Does 18 percent – or some slightly-higher figure – represent the technology’s demand ceiling? Will it plateau, or will it keep growing to eventually reach levels of ubiquity reserved for a small batch of products like smartphones, TVs, and the Web itself?
Meanwhile, these survey sentiments go some distance in answering the question of conversational AI’s actual impact so far. We posed this question on an early episode of This Week in Local, and now it’s at least partially answered. We’ll keep asking the question and keep looking for answers.
