Paid AI Use More Than Doubles in a Year as Claude Gains on ChatGPT
More than twice as many adults pay for an AI assistant as they did a year ago, with 5.1% paying for tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, according to the latest figures from a University of Warwick study of deidentified records from 14 million UK bank and card accounts.
Consumer spending on AI is running at the equivalent of about $1.43 billion per year. Among direct payments to AI providers — which exclude app store subscriptions — Claude’s share of spending rose from 7% to 29% over seven months, while ChatGPT’s fell from 73.5% to 52.5%.
Adoption varies sharply. Analysts say adults aged 20 to 29 are 5.9 times as likely as those 60 and older to have paid for an AI assistant, and those earning more than the equivalent of about $5,400 a month are 88% more likely than those earning less than about $2,000. Men are 28% more likely than women to pay for AI.
The study is by Nikhil Datta, Peter Lambert and Patrick Schneider of the university’s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy and is updated monthly.
