Generative AI is no longer just a tool we open to write a piece of text or create an image. According to a report published by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford on October 29, 2026, it is starting to work as information infrastructure. In practice, it has become one of the main paths people take to find the answers they are looking for. That matters for anyone working in SEO, content production and digital marketing, because more and more people now ask a chatbot directly or read the AI summary that shows up at the top of the search engine.
The study surveyed people in nine countries: Argentina, Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. The research is signed by Felix Simon, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Richard Fletcher and follows up on surveys carried out in 2024 and 2025. One thing up front: Brazil is not part of the sample. So everything this article says about the Brazilian market is analysis by Método Viral, not data from the report.
The numbers behind the shift
To track the trend, the Reuters Institute report compares six countries that were also surveyed in previous editions. In that group, weekly use of generative AI tools jumped from 34% in 2025 to 51% now. Half of the people surveyed, every single week.
Daily use took off as well. According to the institute, it went from 7% in 2024 to 16% in 2025 and reached 28% in 2026, nearly doubling in one year. Few consumer technologies have ever kept up a pace like that.
So who uses it most? According to the Reuters Institute report, the habit is still more common among younger people, among those with higher income and education, and among workers in jobs seen as more highly skilled. The authors point out that part of this adoption comes from work itself, as AI makes its way into everyday business routines.
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The most interesting change, though, is in why people use it. Looking for information has become the most common purpose, ahead of creating content. In the six countries with historical data, the share that used AI to get information in the past week grew from 11% in 2024 to 24% in 2025 and hit 38% in 2026. Within that, researching a topic leads at 24%. Asking for advice comes in at 20%, already on par with getting factual answers, which sits at 18%. In other words, AI is not just being used to double-check a date. People want guidance.
Among platforms, ChatGPT remains the clear leader, with weekly use rising from 22% to 34% on average across the six countries, according to the report. The biggest gain in points, however, went to Gemini, from Google, which jumped from 11% to 24%. Copilot, from Microsoft, went from 6% to 11%, and Claude climbed from 1% to 7%. Trust in these tools also grew as people got to know them better, although many still have no clear opinion, partly because they are not even aware that some of these systems exist. If you want a refresher on what shook up this market over the year, our roundup of the biggest generative AI news stories of 2026 helps fill in the picture.
The AI that shows up uninvited
Not every encounter with AI is a choice. Across the nine countries, 57% of people said they had seen AI-generated summaries in search engines like Google and Bing in the past week. AI also shows up built into phones, tablets and computers, mentioned by 25%, and in social media and messaging apps, mentioned by 21%. The institute calls this incidental exposure: a person opens an app to do something else and runs into AI along the way.
Only 20% say they have not seen AI anywhere. Another 9% were not sure.
News outlets themselves help spread this contact. According to the report, an average of 24% saw a label saying a piece of content was made with AI in the past week, and 20% read an AI-generated bullet-point news summary.
There is also a curious data point about money. According to the Reuters Institute, 10% say they pay for access to AI tools, and 9% use paid versions provided by their job or school. All in all, 18% have access to paid AI, the same share of people who pay for news across the nine countries.
There is a counterpoint, and it matters. AI agents, the systems that carry out tasks on their own, are still a niche. According to the institute, 67% did not use any in the week before the survey. Only 14% said they had used an agent for a real task, and 13% only tried one out of curiosity. The topic gets plenty of buzz in marketing, as we showed when covering agents that automate your database, but use among the general public is still in its early days.
What changes for SEO, content and marketing professionals in Brazil
From here on, this is our analysis. The report does not include data from Brazil, so what follows is a market reading, not a conclusion from the study.
In SEO, the AI summary at the top of search results is likely to change the game. The race is no longer only about the click and now includes a second goal: being the source that AI checks and cites. Well-organized pages with direct answers and reliable information seem to stand a better chance in this landscape.
In content production, the data on advice stands out. If people come to AI with questions like what should I do now, content that answers clearly and shows real expertise should carry more weight. Picture a cosmetics store that publishes honest guides on skin care. That kind of material looks a lot more like a trusted source than a generic piece written just to rank.
In digital marketing, it may be worth widening your view. Watching Google alone no longer seems to be enough, and understanding how your brand shows up in Gemini and ChatGPT is now part of the to-do list. For teams still figuring out how to use the technology, these ways to use artificial intelligence in digital marketing are a good place to start.
An honest caveat: since Brazil was left out of the sample, how fast this shift is happening here is still a market observation. It could be similar, faster or slower.
The main takeaway from the study is straightforward. Generative AI is becoming a gateway to information, not just a creative tool. Método Viral will keep following how this shift unfolds and what it means for people working in tech and marketing in Brazil.
