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Welcome to the Friday edition of our newsletter. We spend Fridays going deeper into tools and trends related to generative AI (and Tuesdays sharing news updates).

We surveyed the folks who joined us for Hot GPT Summer 3 on May 15, with 76 to 82 answering each question. These are people who showed up to a free AI session on a Friday afternoon, so they skew curious.

But the results still surprised us in a few places. Here's what stood out.

Zero people said they “never” use AI at work. Zero said they save no time using it. Thirty people use AI multiple times a day, another 22 use it daily. That's 52 of 77 people reaching for an AI tool every single day.

The “should I be using this?” phase is over, at least for this crowd. The question now is how well, not whether.

This one shows we still have work to do. The biggest group – 38 people – saves just 1 to 3 hours a week using AI tools. Another 19 save less than an hour. Only 18 save 4 to 6 hours, and exactly one person saves 7+.

So we've got near-universal daily use, but most people are getting modest returns. That gap tells us people are using AI for quick, one-off tasks – write this email, summarize that – but haven't built it into bigger workflows yet. The difference between saving 2 hours and saving 6 isn't a better tool. It's better habits and bigger asks.

Keeping up with AI shouldn't feel like a second job.

But between the new tools, viral posts, and endless hot takes, most people spend hours every week trying to figure out what actually matters.

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ChatGPT was the go-to for 36 people, nearly half. After that it bunches up fast: Gemini and Microsoft Copilot tied at 14, Claude at 11. Perplexity got one vote, two people picked something else, and Grok and Meta AI got zero.

The Gemini and Copilot numbers are worth watching. Both are riding on tools people already pay for – Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. When AI shows up inside the software you already open every morning, you use it. That's a real advantage, and we expect those numbers climb.

This is the one I'd point to if you're a leader reading this. Only 26 of 78 people feel fully supported by their company to use AI. Twenty-nine feel “somewhat” supported, 17 said “not really,” one said “not at all,” and five weren't sure.

So fewer than a third feel fully backed. Stack up “not really,” “not at all,” and “not sure” and you've got 23 people – nearly 30% – who are pretty clearly flying solo. That's a lot of folks figuring this out alone, on their own time, without permission or guardrails. If you want better returns than 1 to 3 hours a week, see point #2.

When we asked how concerned people are about AI's impact on their job, the calm camp won. Twenty-six are “not very concerned,” 14 are “not concerned at all.” Add the 25 who feel “mixed,” and most people land somewhere between cautious and optimistic. Only 10 said they're very concerned.

The people using AI most are the least scared of it, which tracks with what we see in every workshop. Fear usually comes from not understanding the thing. Use it for a few weeks and the fear turns into "okay, how do I use this better?"

The story here isn't adoption. That's basically done for anyone paying attention. The story is the gap between using AI and getting real value from it. Daily use, modest time savings, and a big chunk of people without solid support from the top. Close that support gap, teach people to ask for bigger results, and those 1-to-3-hour numbers start to move.

What about you? If you're using AI every day, how much time are you actually getting back? And is your company helping or just hoping? Hit reply and let us know.