Major AI Tools Unknown to 22% Globally- New Study

Despite the hype, frequent users of AI tools remain a small minority according to a new study from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute.

Why the research matters

The onset of AI is often described in terms of inevitability: a question of when rather than if. But it appears that regular usage is relatively rare: many people find that real-world uses for AI at home and at work elude them.

Of course, much of AI’s utility will happen behind the scenes. Search, for example, will become increasingly generative. Many of the uses will be professional and will bleed into the kind of content that people consume, whether on big screens or small. Much of the business growth has been a bet on future potential while new rules are written and professionals learn how the technology may aid their work.

What’s going on

A new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, based on a YouGov online survey of 2000 respondents in each of six countries – Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA – sheds light on the uptake of this potentially revolutionary technology.

Are people using AI?

According to this research, fewer people are actively using AI tools than one might assume. While ChatGPT is comfortably the most famous of the major tools, use is a minority activity across the six countries, and daily use is very rare:

– Denmark: 35% have used; 3% use daily

– USA: 32% have used; 7% use daily

– UK: 29% have used; 2% use daily

– Argentina: 28% have used; 5% use daily

– France: 27% have used; 2% use daily

– Japan: 22% have used; 1% use daily

There is, of course, an age component to this, with an average of 16% of over-55s having used ChatGPT at least once compared to 15% of 18-24s.

Reasons for usage

Averaging across six countries, roughly equal proportions say that they have used generative AI for getting information (24%) as creating media (28%), which includes:

– Writing emails (9%)

– Creating images (9%)

– Writing essays or reports (8%)

– Creating audio (3%)

– Creating video (4%)

– Creating code (5%)

Getting information, meanwhile, breaks down as:

– Answering factual questions (11%)

– Asking advice (10%)

– Generating ideas (9%)

– Playing around or experimenting (9%)

– Summarising text (8%)

– Seeking support (7%)

– Recommendations (6%)

– Translation (6%)

Who hasn’t heard of AI?

One surprising finding of the report is that – even in an online population survey – significant minorities across all countries haven’t heard of any of the main AI tools: between 19% of Japanese respondents at the lower end and 30% in the UK.

As an overall average of all scores, 22.5% of respondents globally haven’t heard of any of the major tools.

Shape of the market

While the focus of the research is on the public’s perception of how AI is used in journalistic newsrooms, it illuminates the state of the perceived AI market leaders as well as how real people are using the technology.

– OpenAI’s Chat GPT is by far the most recognised of the major generative AI tools with between 41% (Argentina) and 61% (Denmark) of respondents having heard of the tool.

– Rivals, including tools from major incumbents like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot, trail OpenAI by some margin: between 15% and 25% of the public recognise any of these brands.

– Specialist tools like Midjourney appear to have little to no brand recognition.