The rise of large language models (LLMs) has been historic. In less than two-and-and-half years, half the adults in America say they have used LLMs. Few, if any, communications and general technologies have seen this pace of growth across the entire population.

Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center have released a report and survey findings that 52% of American adults now use artificial intelligence LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot.

The survey, conducted on the SSRS Opinion Panel among N=500 LLMs users, unearthed two major developments related to LLMs:

• The first is the extent to which these LLMs users say they have human-like encounters with these tools and the sense of some users that the models have personality traits that are both pleasing and dismaying.
• The second development challenges the idea that LLMs are mainly a work tool. In fact, social enrichment and informal learning activities dominate the use of LLMs.