From Hype To Habit: Comscore's New Report Explores How Consumers Really Use AI
We know that AI is changing pretty much everything. What we don’t know is what, why and how.
That was why I was excited to get my hands on Comscore’s new AI report, which uses masses of data to offer a comprehensive look at exactly how AI is being integrated into people’s everyday lives.
The report concentrates on three key touchpoints: AI inside search results through things like Google’s AI Overview and Microsoft Copilot; dedicated assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot; and the growing set of AI-infused tools for design, video and writing.
One of the more surprising sections (at least to me) was the travel case study. It looked at U.S. desktop users who booked hotel rooms and whether they’d visited any AI site in the 90 days before that booking. In August 2023, that number was just shy of one-third of all travel bookers. By August 2025, it was close to two-thirds. That’s a massive leap.
The report then does an even deeper dive into those travel bookers’ behavior.
Some hit AI and hotel sites in the same session. Others started planning using a GPT and then moved over to a hotel site.
And one of the fastest-growing segments actually seemed to go directly from the AI tool to the hotel booking site, which would seem to imply they felt comfortable with the AI’s results.
The other interesting finding is that ChatGPT is losing its monopoly status. Where travelers once almost all defaulted to the app, alternates like Gemini and Claude are rapidly gaining traction.
Search is the other area where AI is overtly reshaping experiences. The familiar set-up of ten blue Google links [four of them paid for!] is giving way to a single seemingly final response built on citations from a relatively concentrated set of domains.
YouTube, Wikipedia and Reddit show up a lot, which may prove problematic given the degree to which the latter two can be manipulated, something the various AI companies need to better understand and account for, lest the data become useless.
The audience for AI is also growing. While Zoomers and younger Millennials dominate, the report notes a growing uptick in usage among older Millennials and Xers, particularly on desktop where those groups feel more at home.
The report, which is quite comprehensive, covers a range of topics. From how AI usage is spreading into creative and productivity tools to how different platforms skew by age and device to how AI-powered search is reshaping which domains get surfaced by category.
If there’s a through line to all the results, it is that AI has moved past the novelty stage, and is now an integral part of how so many users shop, plan travel, research and create.
Even better news: The report is the first of what will be a long-term effort to track how AI is reshaping and refocusing consumer behavior.
By focusing on “how are people actually using it and for what?,” Comscore has created a valuable snapshot of where AI sits in our lives today and where it’s likely headed in the years to come.
