Consumers are getting better at using generative AI, and that growing skill is turning occasional experiments into daily habits. A new report from PYMNTS Intelligence, "From First Prompt to Daily Habit: The Data Behind Rising Gen AI Reliance," found that between 58% and 69% of existing gen AI users say they use the tools more often now than when they first started, depending on the task.
The pattern points to a reinforcing cycle: better tools produce better results, users learn how to give those tools better instructions, and the combination makes AI useful for a wider range of activities. Time savings are the biggest driver. Among personal users who have increased their use, 55% cited saved time as the reason, making it the most frequently mentioned factor.
Skills drive repeat use
Improved AI skills contributed to increased use for 41% of personal users, and 51% said their generative AI skills are higher now than when they started. That learning curve matters most for specific tasks. The share of consumers who use generative AI for learning and self-improvement and said they use it more now than when they began was 69%, the highest of any use case surveyed.
Learning and writing tasks have the highest share of frequent users, with roughly 47% of learning users and 45% of writing users saying they use generative AI often. These tasks lend themselves to repeated use because the payoff is immediate. A user can ask AI to explain a difficult concept, summarize information, suggest an outline, or help refine a piece of writing, then return for a related task. That repeated interaction makes AI feel less like a one-time experiment and more like a familiar part of the process.
For professionals who want to build those skills deliberately, Prompt Engineering Courses can provide structured practice in getting useful results from AI tools.
Power users pull ahead
The gap between casual and committed users is widening. According to the report, 61% of personal power users said they rely on generative AI more than when they started, compared with 32% of mainstream users and 19% of light users. Heavier use creates more opportunities to learn which prompts, tools, and approaches produce useful results - a cycle where greater familiarity leads to more effective use and, in turn, more reasons to keep using AI.
Consumers also see the technology itself improving. Among personal users, ease of use, speed, accuracy, and the range of tasks AI can handle have all improved, according to the report. Privacy and safety showed weaker progress, with 39% of personal users saying those areas have improved.
For teams looking to understand the underlying technology, Generative AI and LLM Courses cover how these models work and where they perform best.
Why this matters for marketing and product development
Consumer AI habits are forming around specific, repeatable tasks - writing, learning, summarizing - not broad experimentation. For marketing and product teams, that means designing features and messaging around quick, visible wins: a faster draft, a clearer explanation, a better outline. Users who see results in seconds are the ones who come back. The report's data on power users suggests that retention will concentrate among people who invest in learning the tools, so products that make that learning easier - through templates, guided prompts, or built-in feedback - are likely to hold their audience better than those that leave users to figure things out alone.
Your membership also unlocks:
