Platform Choice, Trust, and Privacy in the Consumer AI Assistant Market
Computers and Society
Summary
The authors studied nearly 2,000 adult AI assistant users in the U.S. to see how they pick and use different AI platforms, how much they trust them, and what data privacy features they value. They found that ChatGPT and Gemini are the biggest players, but smaller platforms have strong roles for specific tasks like coding. Users tend to trust AI assistants more based on their personal experience than reputation, with Claude seen as very trustworthy among its users. Although most users worry about privacy, they only take action when they understand the issues, paying most to prevent humans (not AI) from accessing their conversations.
Authors
Jennifer Zou
Abstract
We study how a representative sample of United States adult AI-assistant users (n=1,999; June 2026) choose among platforms, allocate tasks across them, evaluate provider trustworthiness, and value data-handling features. Estimates are weighted to the AI-user population using external adoption benchmarks. Four patterns emerge. The market is concentrated but internally differentiated: ChatGPT is the primary assistant for 58% of users and Gemini for 25%, yet smaller platforms hold defensible task niches--Claude captures a third of coding tasks despite a 7% overall share. Task allocation is thus organized by platform far more than by user, and technical use falls steeply with age. Trust is earned through use rather than reputation: Claude is ranked most trustworthy in every head-to-head among users of both platforms, and shows by far the largest gap between how its users and non-users rate it. Finally, privacy concern is near-universal but action is gated by knowledge, not concern; in a choice experiment users pay most to keep humans--not models--out of their conversations ($11.20/month), with valuations rising in task sensitivity.