Saturday, September 5, 2026
ExploreSearch
Via News
Source trace. Via News points to the documents behind its reporting and shows what we drew from each — so you can check any claim. How we source
Source document

We still don’t know how people are really using AI

View original at technologyreview.com
MIT Technology Review - Ai Research Title: We still don’t know how people are really using AI Date: 2026-08-18 10:06 Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/18/1142226/how-people-use-ai/ <div></div> <p>AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using products like Claude…
Opening lines of the source · short snapshot — read the full document at the original

What we drew from this source

The claims Via News extracted from this document. We point to the source; we don't replace it.

  • Anthropic's published research reflects its research teams' specific questions and interests, and it's important to support external independent research.

    60% confidence

  • Having the AI Observatory's bird's-eye-view analysis rather than leaving that information sectioned off into a separate report helps researchers understand the different uses more consistently.

    60% confidence

  • No single company report tells the whole story of AI usage.

    60% confidence

  • Researchers cannot determine whether Anthropic's general-purpose AI system is used mostly for good or mostly for bad because that information is proprietary.

    60% confidence

  • There is no independent source to corroborate the usage data AI companies publish.

    60% confidence

  • Anyone making decisions based on AI usage data risks completely operating in the wild and making consequential decisions without knowing what's actually happening beyond company narratives.

    60% confidence

  • Highly consequential decisions about AI's benefits and risks are currently being made on the basis of very limited data.

    60% confidence

Data points we hold from this source

OpenAI · work related use share30 percent
OpenAI · conversations analyzed1500000 count
What we know · the intelligence behind this page
Live from the substrate
What we're seeing
AI Capital Surge Meets Investor Caution: Record Funding Rounds and Government Contracts Amid Valuation Skepticism
A single-week cluster of large AI/fintech funding rounds (Socure, Stability AI, Emerald AI, Generalist AI, Instinct, Gatik, Regent Craft) shows venture capital still pouring into AI infrastructure, identity, and autonomy plays, while Palantir's Army TITAN contract win coincided with a 6% stock drop — signaling that even flagship AI-defense revenue isn't immune to market reassessment of AI valuations. Efficiency-focused innovations like Multiverse Computing's model compression suggest the sector is also pivoting toward cost/inference economics as capital intensity draws scrutiny.
Our read on the data ›
Signals we're tracking
EPKINLY Regulatory-Clinical Success Cascade
High probability of expanded label indications, additional combination approvals, and competitive positioning strength in follicular lymphoma market. Predicts positive commercial uptake and potential accelerated review for related indications.
Patterns we're watching ›
Where sources disagree
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
The same metric (eps) for the same entity (Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC) reported for the identical fiscal period (Q1 2026) and observation date (2026-03-31) has two conflicting values: 3.43 USD_per_share vs 3.08 USD. This is not a temporal change — both observations claim to measure the same point in time. The ~10% discrepancy (0.35 USD difference) is material for a financial metric.
We flag conflicts openly ›
Recently verified
✓ Checked against the original source
4,981
facts traced to their source — and we flag the ones that don't hold up.
101 entities tracked4,981 facts checked against source5,273 source documents archived
Query this data → isubstrate.com
We still don’t know how people are really using AI — Source | Via News | Via News