Sean’s AI Signal – Issue #20
Welcome to Signal! Every week I highlight 5 of the most useful ideas, tools, and conversations shaping AI right now. Think of it as your shortcut through the noise. Let’s dive in!
Signal #1: Everyone Is Using AI, but Almost No One Is Admitting It
Anthropic released a study showing that most workers now use AI every day, yet 69% hide it.
That number stopped me.
People are relying on these AI tools constantly, but they don’t feel comfortable saying so? And it made me wonder why. Are they holding on to shortcuts that make them more productive and don’t want to give them up? Or are they worried there’s still a stigma around using AI at work, as if it somehow diminishes the value of their contribution?
Either way, it creates an odd tension inside companies. AI is everywhere, yet no one talks about it. The learning happens privately instead of collectively. The wins don’t spread. The mistakes don’t teach anyone. And the organization never compounds any of it.
We’ve taken a very different path at PeopleMetrics. We’ve encouraged open, responsible use of AI from the start, and we built secure environments to protect client data so people feel safe experimenting. We created an AI Lab where employees can share what’s working and where they’re getting stuck. I write this Substack every week to pull the curtain back on what I’m learning. And we’ve invested in tools like ChatGPT Teams, Gamma, Lovable and others to make this a real part of how we work, not a side project or a secret advantage.
Why it matters: Insight work gets better when the whole team is learning together. When people hide their AI use, their breakthroughs stay isolated, their productivity gains never spread, and the storytelling never reaches its full potential. But when a team can openly use AI, ask questions, compare approaches, and build on each other’s progress, the work (and insights!) comes alive in a completely different way. If AI is the new baseline for how modern work gets done, we’re better off treating it like a shared capability instead of something people feel they need to conceal. As long as I am running PeopleMetrics, AI use will be encouraged and celebrated!
Signal #2: Copilot’s Flat Growth Shows That Distribution Alone Isn’t Enough
This chart reveals a lot, but the thing that stood out most to me was Copilot.
No AI product has better distribution. It’s built directly into the tools almost every knowledge worker uses every day. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams. It should be everywhere because it already is everywhere. And yet the usage barely moves. It starts the year with 218 million monthly active users (MAUs) and ends with 212 million. For context, a monthly active user simply means someone who logged into the product at least once in the last thirty days. It’s a basic measure of whether people are actually choosing to use a tool, not just having access to it. And despite that massive distribution advantage, Copilot’s MAUs are basically flat. In a year when AI adoption was exploding, Copilot stayed in place.
That disconnect says something important about this moment. Distribution doesn’t guarantee value. And if people don’t feel value, they move on. Here’s the part that resonates with me. I haven’t talked to a single person who loves Copilot. Not one. Most describe it as slow, inconsistent, or confusing. Meanwhile I meet people constantly who rave about ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude. People tell stories about how those tools saved them hours or helped them think in new ways. I don’t hear those stories about Copilot.
Why it matters: Insights teams face the same test. Access is irrelevant if the work doesn’t emotionally connect with stakeholders. People adopt the tools that genuinely help them, the ones that make their ideas sharper and their stories come alive. That’s why you see ChatGPT and Gemini racing ahead and Copilot stuck where it is. Usefulness is the real moat. Emotional connection is the real moat. And the AI that becomes part of someone’s day is the one that earns that place through impact, not distribution.
Signal #3: Waymo’s Growth Shows How Fast AI Is About to Reshape the Real World
This chart shows Waymo’s share of the ride-sharing market across major cities, and the curve is unmistakable.
San Francisco is approaching 10%. Phoenix continues to rise. Los Angeles is accelerating. And all of this is happening even though a Waymo ride costs about 30% more on average than Uber or Lyft. People aren’t choosing it because it’s cheaper. They’re choosing it because it’s safer, smoother, more predictable, and always available.
I felt the shift in a real way today. I took a Lyft to the airport from my home in Philadelphia. I paid about $26. The driver told me he received a little over $8 for that ride. And I couldn’t shake the thought that the days of human ride-share drivers are probably coming to an end. Not in 5-10 years. Much sooner. And I realize that this might be a trend many of us don’t like. I have mixed feelings about it myself. But after 57 years on this earth, I’ve learned that the world wasn’t created for me or for any of us individually. Progress moves. It doesn’t wait for our comfort or approval. And whether we cheer it or resist it, it keeps going.
That’s the bigger story here. AI isn’t just about LLMs or chatbots. It has been quietly flying airplanes for decades. Now it’s driving cars. It is beginning to run factories, warehouses, farms, and homes. And sooner than later, robots will handle everyday tasks we once thought only humans could do.
Why it matters: AI is crossing over from the digital world into the physical one, and once that happens the pace of change accelerates dramatically. Ride-sharing is giving us an early preview of how whole industries will shift. And it won’t feel gradual. It will feel sudden, obvious, and inevitable. Every time I see a chart like this, or take a ride where the driver earns $8 on a $26 fare, I’m reminded that this next wave of automation isn’t distant. It’s already here. And it’s going to reshape the world faster than most people expect.
Signal #4: AI Is On Track To Become the Fastest Adopted Technology in Human History
This chart compares the adoption curves of some of the most important technologies of the last century: electricity, radio, the internet, smartphones.
All of them follow a familiar pattern. Slow early growth. Infrastructure buildup. Gradual acceptance. A long climb toward ubiquity. Then look at the blue line. AI isn’t following the pattern. It isn’t inching upward. It’s shooting upward. And it’s doing it without factories, hardware, or physical distribution. All you need is curiosity and a browser. The friction is gone. The moment someone tries AI for the first time, the value clicks, and the curve bends. As an insights professional (and a bit of a data geek) the slopes of these lines fascinate me. The slope is the story. It tells you the speed of change. And this AI slope is steeper than the adoption curves of technologies we now consider universal. Electricity. The internet. Smartphones. Things we literally cannot live without. AI is outpacing all of them.
And what’s wild is that we’re still early. This chart measures household usage now, when AI is still something people “use” consciously. When it becomes ambient,when it quietly runs inside your apps, your car, your home, your job, the slope will steepen again.
Why it matters: this pace is about to reshape every industry. Healthcare, transportation, education, finance, hospitality, manufacturing, logistics, entertainment, government … all of them will feel the pressure of this acceleration. The expectations of customers, employees, and leaders will rise because they’re living in a world where AI is improving weekly. Jobs will change. Products will change. Whole markets will reorganize around new capabilities. And the companies that thrive will be the ones that recognize they are operating inside the steepest adoption curve humanity has ever seen. AI isn’t just another tool. It’s the fastest-spreading capability in history, and it’s about to change the structure of how the world works far sooner than most people expect.
Signal #5: The Physical World Is About To Change Faster Than the Digital One
Elon Musk said something this past week that stopped me:
“AI and robotics is a supersonic tsunami. So, this is really gonna be the most radical change that we’ve ever seen.”
And the more you look at what’s happening, the more you realize he isn’t exaggerating. If anything, he might be understating it. We just saw in Signal #3 how quickly autonomous ride-sharing is already shifting. Waymo is gaining real market share in major cities, even at a higher price point. Tesla’s robotaxi network is right behind it. That’s the early edge of this wave. Because once AI stops living only on screens and starts operating in the physical world, everything accelerates.
Warehouses are being redesigned around autonomous systems. Humanoid robots are walking, lifting, sorting, gripping, and learning in real time. Hospitals are rolling out AI-assisted surgical systems. Farms are adopting autonomous fleets. Restaurants are testing robotic kitchens. Hotels are experimenting with AI-driven service. These are not prototypes. They’re deployments. All happening in parallel. When AI intelligence combines with robotic capability, the curve doesn’t simply steepen. It breaks. We move from assistance to autonomy. From tools that help humans to tools that replace entire categories of physical work. And it happens faster than people expect because the economics are so much better and the experience becomes so much more consistent.
Why it matters: the next decade won’t be defined by digital transformation. It will be defined by physical transformation. Transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, logistics, retail, hospitality, elder care, home care, farming and more will be reshaped by this convergence of AI and robotics. Jobs will evolve. Industries will reorganize. Costs will collapse. Safety and reliability will increase. And the pace of everyday life will shift in a way that will feel both exhilarating and overwhelming. Musk called it a supersonic tsunami. And when you look at Waymo, at Tesla’s roadmap, at the rise of humanoid robots, and at the speed of adoption we’re already seeing, he’s not being dramatic. Well, maybe a little! But my guess is he is describing the early stages of the fastest physical reordering of work the world has ever seen.
The Last Word: Embracing the “Snap”
Every major shift has a moment when the world quietly snaps into a new shape. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t wait for consensus. One day it just becomes clear that the way things worked yesterday is not the way they will work tomorrow. That isn’t a moment to fear. It’s a moment to grow into.
AI is creating that snap right now. The pace is fast, but the story underneath it is one of possibility. New tools, new capabilities, new forms of value, new ways for people to express talent and imagination. The snap is not the end of something familiar. It is the beginning of something larger.
When I look around, I don’t just see disruption. I see expansion. I see more room for creativity. More room for insight. More room for people to do work that matters. More room for ideas that couldn’t exist even a year ago. The world isn’t tightening. It’s opening.
The real question is how we choose to meet this moment. We can tense up and brace for impact, or we can stay curious and let the snap pull us forward. We can hold on to what is fading, or we can step into what is emerging. The people who thrive in moments like this are not the ones who resist change. They are the ones who let it stretch them, challenge them and ultimately expand them.
But make no mistake, the snap is here.
And instead of shrinking from it, we can allow it to make us bigger. More capable. More imaginative. More alive to what’s possible. This isn’t a closing chapter. It’s an opening!
And if we embrace it with clear eyes and the right mindset, the snap becomes not something that happens to us, but something that happens for us.