Comment by let_rec
2 days ago
If I use Google Search to do a search and I get an AI answer that I scroll past, do I count an AI user?
The numbers are not reliable.
2 days ago
If I use Google Search to do a search and I get an AI answer that I scroll past, do I count an AI user?
The numbers are not reliable.
You could use ChatGPT/anthropic/etc signups as your proxy if you wanted, and those show similarly spectacular trajectories.
It is only spectacular because of the free tiers and the artificially lowered costs of the services. Put the real prices on the OpenAI and Anthropic services, remove the free tier and only than you will have a true picture of how many people are willing to pay to use it.
> It is only spectacular because of the free tiers
The thesis under discussion is "most people hate AI", not "most people will pay for AI". People who hate AI won't sign up to use the tools if they're free or paid QED AI service signups regardless of paid status are useful datapoints for "how many people don't hate AI".
The majority of users will see the convenient answer right in front of them and stop, because their question has been answered. We've seen it again and again across industries, an an accelerating cycle: make it easy, and the users will usually do what you want.
Google search is not typically counted as consumer "AI usage" in the reports I've seen. They're comparing chat implementations.