How much of our reaction to AI art is really about the image? We got a neat stress test of that question recently, when one X user presented a paintingas AI-generated, invited critique, and then revealed it was a Monet all along. Some experts weren’t fooled, but the setup says plenty about how little we can tell the difference, even when we feel confident.
Scroll down to read about what people think about AI and finance, monks in casinos, and just how important fandoms are.
Stats to power your week
🤌 Not content with being a a pocket researcher and sometime therapist, ChatGPT now wants to be your financial advisoras well. But when finances get involved, the threshold of trust tends to go up - and we find that consumers would be about as comfortable with an AI providing financial advice as they would be with letting an agent complete tasks at work on their behalf. GWI Pulse
🆎 As we discovered in a different survey, the places people would be most comfortable seeing AI in the personal finance space are fraud detection (33%) and simplifying complex information (21%). It’s a reminder that the practicality people often want from AI is giving information to make their own decisions, not necessarily making decisions for them. GWI Pulse
🛣️ Waymo is expanding to more cities, though as a recent cul-de-sac mishap in Atlantashows, there are still kinks to iron out. And consumers still have real concerns about the concept of self-driving cars; 28% would feel safe about riding in a fully autonomous vehicle, while 50% would feel unsafe. GWI Pulse
🎰 Since a Supreme Court ruling in 2018, sports gambling has rolled out across the US, and caused some concern about its impact on young men. One eye-catching stat to sum up the change: from 12% in 2020, 23% of Gen Z men are now interested in gambling, ironically putting it about equal with their interest in personal finances (24%) and investment (25%). GWI USA
Meet the audience: eco-conscious consumers
Without GWI data
With GWI data
Though she’s currently associated with a different cause, Greta Thunberg has a big influence in the cultural imagination as the face of eco-activism. Largely thanks to her, the stereotype of eco-conscious consumers tends to overlap with her profile - young, female, and politically forceful.
But - as is often the case with consumer research - while activists take the headlines, many consumers express their values through quieter, more practical decisions. They’re more focused on their home and community than in fighting a political battle. In this particular case, they’re also more gender-balanced than you might think.
Chart of the week
Do you ever feel like a different person when you’re online? There might be something to it.
If we look at how people define their identity offline vs. online, there are some significant differences. Family is much less important online, while media preferences suddenly rank among the most important.
It reflects the contextual difference in both categories. In “the real world”, people move between much more tightly defined communities, whereas online spaces skew more towards linking people by shared interest. It’s a similar pattern behind religion falling in importance online, while hobbies and beliefs take even more of a centre stage.
One other thing worth noting - the old comic has it that “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”, but it shows how visual online spaces are now that physical appearance still finds a place in the top 10.
More from GWI
With the regular football season coming to close, attention is switching to the World Cup: our playbook has the inside scoop on the tournament’s audiences and how to reach them.
As if that wasn’t enough football insight, our co-branded webinar with Snap has even more detail on what makes up modern-day football fandom.
