Americans who know about ChatGPT are mostly young, affluent, and well-educated

• A new survey from Pew Research Center found that 58% of US adults are familiar with ChatGPT.
• The survey also found that individuals from upper income households with postgraduate degrees were the most likely to know about ChatGPT.

There's been a lot of chatter about ChatGPT recently.

OpenAI's buzzy online bot— which can generate sentences that sound convincingly human— became the fastest-growing web app in history just months after launching. The bot has frightened educators, pushed lawmakers to consider regulating AI, and left big tech giants scrambling to compete.

But who is actually using it?

Pew Research Center surveyed a little more than 10,000 U.S. adults in mid-March to better understand who had heard about ChatGPT— and who actually found the tool useful.

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Those with more education and income

Pew's survey found that 6 in 10, or approximately 58% of US adults, are familiar with ChatGPT.

And the more formal education an individual has the more likely they are to know about ChatGPT.

Almost 80% of survey respondents with a postgraduate degree had heard "a lot" or at least "a little" about ChatGPT. Among those with just a college degree, though, that figure fell to 71%. It was even less, just 59%, for those with some amount of college.

Among those with a high-school degree, only 41% said they were familiar with ChatGPT.

The survey results were similar in regard to household income levels.

Approximately 76% of respondents that came from upper-income households were familiar with ChatGPT, while 60% of those in middle-income households knew about the tool. Only 45% of those from lower-income households were aware of ChatGPT.

From tasks at work to entertainment

Pew's survey also elucidated interesting patterns in how people are using ChatGPT.

Only 14% of respondents said they've used ChatGPT for entertainment, work, or to learn something new.

Approximately 19% of respondents in Pew's Survey who had heard of ChatGPT said they use the tool for entertainment. Another 14% said they use it to learn something new. Around 12% use ChatGPT for work tasks.

Those from lower-income households are more likely to use ChatGPT across the board. Approximately 20% of those from lower-income households are likely to use ChatGPT for work tasks compared with 11% from middle and upper-income households respectively.

Younger people are more likely to find ChatGPT useful

Overall, a little more than a third of the respondents in Pew's survey who use ChatGPT found the tool to be "extremely" or "very" useful. While another 39% of respondents thought the tool was only somewhat useful.

Younger users also perceive more utility in ChatGPT than older users.

Approximately 38% of respondents under the age of 50 using ChatGPT found it to be very or even extremely useful. Just around a quarter of respondents over 50 said the same.