What do people use AI for at work?
Mostly for writing and finding information: about half of AI-using workers use it for writing or editing, and about half for research or search. Coding is a minority use outside tech, named by 13 to 27 percent of AI users in surveys.
- High confidence
- 5 primary sources
- 2025 to 2026
- Last checked
Every study on one scale
Chart values as text
- Scale: % using AI for writing or editing. Shaded range: 40–52%.
- Gallup (survey) (2026): 51% writing and editing
- Pew (survey) (2025): 52% editing
- Bick, Blandin and Deming (survey) (2025): 39.5% rank writing top two
- OpenAI (usage logs) (2025): 40% of work messages
Why high confidence: Three US surveys and two usage-log studies, using different methods, agree that writing and finding information are the top work uses of general AI chatbots. Claude's logs lean toward coding, which reflects its user base and is shown separately.
Studies without a figure on this scale are listed in the table only.
Sources
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organizational AI Adoption Jumps Six Points (Q2 2026 workforce study) | Gallup | 2026 | US employees who use AI, from 22,573 surveyed in May 2026 | Self-reported uses, several answers allowed | Writing and editing 51%, search or research 49%, general help or problem-solving 39%, data analysis 18%, coding 16% “the most common uses of AI are writing and editing (51%), search or research (49%)” | gallup.com ↗ |
| U.S. Workers Are More Worried Than Hopeful About Future AI Use in the Workplace | Pew Research Center | 2025 | Workers who have used AI chatbots at work, from 5,273 employed US adults, October 2024 | Self-reported uses ever, several answers allowed | Research or finding information 57%, editing written content 52%, drafting 47%, summarizing 40%, analyzing data or writing code 27% “Most common uses for AI chatbots at work are doing research and editing written content” | pewresearch.org ↗ |
| The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI (NBER Working Paper 32966) | Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin and David Deming | 2025 | 4,698 employed generative AI users, August and November 2024 | Users ranked the tasks AI helped with most last week (top two) | Writing 39.5%, administrative tasks 25.6%, translating or summarizing 22.7%, searching for facts 18.0%, coding 12.9% “The highest ranked tasks at work were writing (39.5 percent), administrative tasks” | nber.org ↗ |
| How People Use ChatGPT (NBER Working Paper 34255) | Aaron Chatterji, David Deming and colleagues (OpenAI, Duke, Harvard) | 2025 | Random samples of consumer ChatGPT messages, May 2024 to June 2025; business plans excluded | Automated classification of messages. Counts messages, not people. Authors include OpenAI staff. | Writing is 40% of work-related messages; 27% of all consumer messages were work-related in June 2025; programming is 4.2% of all messages “Writing is the most common use case at work, accounting for 40% of work-related messages” | nber.org ↗ |
| Working with AI: Measuring the Applicability of Generative AI to Occupations | Kiran Tomlinson, Sonia Jaffe, Will Wang, Scott Counts and Siddharth Suri (Microsoft Research) | 2025 | About 200,000 anonymized US Bing Copilot conversations, January to September 2024 | Conversations matched to work activities by an AI classifier. Authors are Microsoft employees. | Most common user goals: learning, communicating, explaining and writing “the most common and successful AI-assisted work activities involve information work” | arxiv.org ↗ |
Why do some studies say a third of AI use is coding?
That comes from Claude's usage logs, where tasks tied to computer and mathematical jobs were 35% of Claude.ai conversations in February 2026, because Claude's users lean toward software work. In ChatGPT, programming is 4.2% of messages, and in worker surveys 13 to 27% of AI users name coding. In November 2025, Claude.ai chats were 52% augmentation (learning, iterating, checking) and 45% automation, while API traffic was about three quarters automation.
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic Economic Index reports (January and March 2026) | Anthropic | 2026 | 1 million sampled conversations each from Claude.ai and the API, February 2026; a one-week sample in November 2025 | Privacy-preserving classification of conversations, mapped to occupational tasks. Anthropic sells Claude. | Computer and mathematical tasks 35% of Claude.ai conversations (February 2026); Claude.ai 52% augmentation and 45% automation (November 2025) “The share of conversations classified as augmented jumped 5pp to 52%” | anthropic.com ↗ |
Is most chatbot use for work?
No. In June 2025, 73% of consumer ChatGPT messages were not about work, up from 53% a year earlier. Business and enterprise plans were not in that sample, so work use is understated. On Claude.ai, 46% of conversations were work in November 2025.
Numbers you may have seen
These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says.
- Most ChatGPT use is for work. 73% of consumer ChatGPT messages were not about work in June 2025.
- A third or more of AI use is coding. True for Claude only. Programming is 4.2% of ChatGPT messages, and 13 to 27% of AI-using workers name coding in surveys.
- 57% of AI use is augmentation, 43% automation (Anthropic). That described Claude.ai in January 2025. By November 2025 it was 52% augmentation and 45% automation on Claude.ai, and API traffic was about three quarters automation.
- Therapy and companionship is the top use of generative AI. OpenAI's study of ChatGPT messages found relationships and personal reflection at 1.9% of messages.
More from Who Uses AI at Work
- F-1440–50%What share of workers use generative AI at work?
- F-1678–85%Which occupations and industries use AI the most?
- F-1712–24 ptsWho uses AI at work more, by age, education and income?
- F-185–16 ptsIs there a gender gap in AI use at work, and how large is it?
- F-1950–78%How many workers use AI tools their employer did not provide, and how many hide it?
- F-2042–49%How many employers provide AI tools, guidance or training to staff?
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