Epoch: near-daily AI use among US adults doubled in six months

The share of US adults using AI at least six days a week rose from 8.2% in March 2026 to 18.7% in August, according to a new Epoch AI analysis of Ipsos KnowledgePanel polling. Overall AI use climbed more modestly, from 50.0% to 56.4%.

The authors, Amreeta Das, Caroline Falkman Olsson, and Yafah Edelman, qualify the comparison. "Each wave surveys a fresh sample of respondents rather than tracking the same individuals," they write, "so the results reflect population-level changes rather than changes within the same people." They also flag an instrument change: "The two waves measured days of use differently. March asked a single overall question whose response options were these three groups, while August asked day counts for each service separately, which we collapsed into the same groups." The August wave covered ChatGPT, Claude, Meta AI, Character.AI, and DeepSeek, with researchers taking the maximum across them, a design the authors say may understate frequency relative to a single overall-use question.

The reshuffle inside the user base is as telling as the headline. One-day-a-week use actually fell, from 17.3% to 10.1%, while the two-to-five-day band ticked up from 24.3% to 27.3%. Occasional checking is giving way to habit.