Is AI all a fad? A new report suggests very few people are using tools like ChatGPT and the hype is being misconstrued for actual public interest

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What you need to know

  • A new report suggests that AI is just hype, with only a few users leveraging the technology's capabilities daily.
  • The report's author claims most people are misconstruing AI hype for public interest.
  • A separate report suggests GPT-4o's launch led to the biggest spike ever in ChatGPT's downloads and revenue on mobile.

As you might have probably figured out, huge corporations are investing heavily in generative AI. Apple pulled the plug on its electric car project and channeled the resources to AI advances. A new report suggests OpenAI and Apple recently signed a deal to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone

Perhaps a bid to catch up with Microsoft, which according to analysts is on the brink of reaching its iPhone moment with AI after becoming the world's most valuable company ahead of Apple with over $3 trillion in market capitalization. 

Interestingly, a new report by the Reuters Institute and Oxford University indicates very few people are using AI, despite the overwhelming hype around the technology and its advances (via BBC). 

The research included a survey that examined 12,000 people across six countries to determine the usefulness of AI tools like ChatGPT. Strangely enough, only 2% of the participants use AI tools daily. The study also revealed that the youth (ages 18-24) are more inclined toward AI and more likely to integrate the technology into their routines. 

While speaking to the BBC, the report's lead author, Dr. Richard Fletcher explained that most people are misconstruing the hype around AI for public interest.

Is anyone actually using AI tools?

(Image credit: Windows Central | Image Creator by Designer)

In a poll recently featured on Windows Central's website, half of our polled readers disclosed that they never use Copilot. At the time, Microsoft had just begun testing a new way to launch the tool like an AI genie if you so much as tickle the taskbar icon.

Interestingly, a separate report by Appfigures suggests that OpenAI's launch of its new flagship GPT-4o model with reasoning capabilities across text, audio, and image in real-time contributed to ChatGPT's biggest spike ever in revenue and downloads on mobile.

In my opinion, the reservations towards AI are mainly centered on privacy, security, and applicable use cases. A great example would be Microsoft's next-gen AI Windows Recall feature, which is expected to ship to Windows 11 in June. It acts like a time capsule capturing snapshots of everything you do on your PC, allowing you to refer to the locally stored snapshots for future reference.

While Microsoft promises the feature is 100% privacy-focused and presents it as an opt-in experience, most users have blatantly raised security and privacy concerns across social media, with some even comparing it to a Black Mirror episode. The UK data watchdog is already looking into some of the raised issues

Microsoft promised that it wouldn't use the data accessed by the feature to train its models. The tech giant is shipping these next-gen AI features exclusively to Copilot+ PCs with powerful NPUs, however, we already know that Windows Recall can run on unsupported hardware but with a huge performance compromise.

Kevin Okemwa
Contributor

Kevin Okemwa is a seasoned tech journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya with lots of experience covering the latest trends and developments in the industry at Windows Central. With a passion for innovation and a keen eye for detail, he has written for leading publications such as OnMSFT, MakeUseOf, and Windows Report, providing insightful analysis and breaking news on everything revolving around the Microsoft ecosystem. You'll also catch him occasionally contributing at iMore about Apple and AI. While AFK and not busy following the ever-emerging trends in tech, you can find him exploring the world or listening to music.

  • TheFerrango
    It’s not a fad as the product does exist and has limited benefits, but interest from the general populace is fabricated at best
    Reply
  • taynjack
    OpenAI has had a usable product for maybe a year? Give it time. The information superhighway wasn't widely embraced in the beginning either. iPhone and Android took some time to mature and become indispensable tools of the general public. Just like the average person didn't know what to do with the 4hrs of AOL access disks shipped to their home, people today just don't know what to do with AI yet.
    Reply
  • JamesDax3
    Not a fad.
    Reply
  • The Werewolf
    TheFerrango said:
    It’s not a fad as the product does exist and has limited benefits, but interest from the general populace is fabricated at best
    That's not what "fad" means.

    A fad is an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze. The question here is whether or not there is a shared enthusiasm, and at least in the tech press, whether for or again, "AI" is basically everywhere to the degree that practically every top end software company is trying to cram it in somewhere.

    So in the end what will determine if this is a fad or not is whether it sticks around in its current form.

    Given that actual use of "AI" never really was that big and there's little evidence to support the idea that it will ever be a major part of the general public's toolset, then the odds are good it will die off and thus we have a fad.
    Reply
  • The Werewolf
    JamesDax3 said:
    Not a fad.
    We don't know yet. It may well be a fad. it certainly has all the earmarks of a typical fad. Over the top marketing. Trying to get people to use it whether or not they want or need it. Trying to tie it into every aspect of social interactions. I mean "AI" has "frisbee" and "hoola-hoop" written all over it.

    In the end, we'll see if it's a fad if it settles down out of the hype phase and becomes something people actually use for real world productivity on an ongoing bases - and right now, the signs point to "no". It seems to solve a problem few people actually have.
    Reply
  • Bla1ze
    Not a fad, but it's definitely hyped up at the moment in the fact that everyone everywhere has to be telling us about their AI and jamming it into things and places it doesn't need to be. Eventually it'll fade into the background and just happen.

    Unfortunately, I worry about this whole learning stage of the process. As we've seen, AI being implemented into everything hasn't always yielded the best results.

    Take Google for example. People turn to Google when they have questions and such and with AI actively spitting out rubbish, that's actively causing harm.
    Reply
  • TheFerrango
    The Werewolf said:
    That's not what "fad" means.

    A fad is an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze. The question here is whether or not there is a shared enthusiasm, and at least in the tech press, whether for or again, "AI" is basically everywhere to the degree that practically every top end software company is trying to cram it in somewhere.

    So in the end what will determine if this is a fad or not is whether it sticks around in its current form.

    Given that actual use of "AI" never really was that big and there's little evidence to support the idea that it will ever be a major part of the general public's toolset, then the odds are good it will die off and thus we have a fad.
    Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see AI fail miserably and vaporise billions worth of investment from companies shoe horning it where it doesn’t belong, I’m just not that sure nothing is going to stick, given the huge amount of AI stuff everywhere.

    But yes, it does sound like a fad, same as blockchain a couple years ago
    Reply
  • BINARYGOD
    Wow - a study. One Study - and it says something I want to hear! NEAT!!! CLICK HERE PLEASE!!!!!
    Reply
  • bazanime
    I've been using it to help me proofread my documents and texts since I have dyslexia.
    It's was nice making Xmas cards last year with copilot.
    Language translation has improved a lot since I read manga and sometimes have to read raw copies.

    AI in the public visible space may be a fad but once all the fanfare has died down it will quietly integrate into everyday life and it will be used naturally.
    Reply
  • DaveDansey
    I think using the term "AI" is a fad that will die down.

    I don't consider upscaling or removing unwanted objects from a picture "artificial intelligence", yet they are coined as "AI Tools". It's just another way of processing data using LLM's and such. I've no problem with this sort of use. I'm sure many applications will utilise these techniques to provide new features; as an end user I couldn't care less if the feature uses "AI" code.

    Windows new recall feature - there is no way I would even consider turning that on. It's trying to "solve" a problem that anyone with basic technical aptitude would never have in the first place. I can't recall ;-) ever being unable to find my own documents. I don't need reminding about a website I visited weeks ago - if I had any intention of revisiting it I'd have saved it to favourites, fail that, there's browser history. Storing many GB worth of data on my local drive in the form of thousands of images just feels weird to me. Surely I'd be better off just strapping a go-pro to my chest 24\7 if I really wanted to never forget anything! I've met lots of people who don't know how PC storage works and do struggle with navigating folders, so I guess this is targeted at them.

    As for Tony Stark levels of artificial intelligence, although it sounds cool, does anyone really want a virtual, internet-connected personal assistant who knows everything about you and can recall anything anyone's done in an instant?
    Reply