Who’s using AI on their phone?

The article Smartphone Buyers Care Even Less About AI Than They Did Last Year, CNET Survey Finds by Abrar Al-Heeti (CNet) contains the following illuminating graphic.

Almost no-one cares about AI on their phone

“In 2024, the biggest motivation for US smartphone owners to upgrade their devices was longer battery life (61%), followed by more storage (46%) and better camera features (38%). Just 18% said their main motivator was AI integrations. This year, it appears that number is even lower, even as AI capabilities become more ubiquitous. ”

“Just 13% of people say they use AI on their phone to summarize or write text, 8% say they tap into AI image creation tools and 7% use AI on their phone for photo editing. Additionally, 20% admit to not even knowing how to use the AI features on their handset.”

That’s not surprising and it’s probably not just the AI feature, so beware of this statistic. These are people who barely know how to use anything on their phones. They use any device by ritual. If an icon moves or changes color, they’re lost

On the other hand, the low-usage numbers are damning. People aren’t using AI features and don’t care that they might be missing out on something. In a world of FOMO, and with the incredible push for AI, this is really damning.

It may very well be that the hype is hyper-focused on the tech world and the rest of the world doesn’t even really notice this stuff. It may be that they’re finally really trying to sell something too complicated for people to use or even know what to do with.

“Samsung, for one, says on its website that Galaxy AI features “will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices.” Apple is also expected to eventually start charging for some of its AI-powered iPhone features. You’ll also need to pay to unlock Gemini’s full power across Google’s apps. Amid so much subscription fatigue, that could be a tough sell. Half of people surveyed say they’re not willing to pay extra money to access AI features on their phone. That’s up 5% over last year.”

Wait. Almost no-one is using AI features but only half of all users would be willing to pay for those features? That implies that there is a large subset (1/3?) who would be willing to pay extra for features that they don’t use. Oh, never mind. That tracks.

Actually, according to the numbers in the chart below, only 3% of all adult users are willing to pay for AI features, and 50% said that they would expressly not pay more.

Users don't know how to use AI, don't want more, and don't want to pay for it

I can’t help but include the methodology section at the end of the article because it was so cool that they included it in such detail.

“CNET commissioned YouGov Plc. to conduct the survey. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. The total sample size was 2,201 adults, of whom 2,129 own a smartphone. Fieldwork was undertaken May 13 to 15, 2025. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18 plus).”