Happy Lunar New Year to everyone celebrating. The omens look good for Emmanuel Macron, Elon Musk, and Draco Malfoy (!) - Chinese translations of their names all include the character “ma”, which means horse.
Scroll down to read about pancakes, Seedance, and cider without the hangover.
Stats to power your week
📽️ Just over a year after DeepSeek signaled Chinese AI could match US models, ByteDance’s video-generating model Seedance is having a similar moment in the sun. But it’s also generating controversy with its relaxed approach to copyrighted content. Public support is thin, with only 1 in 5 saying AI should be allowed to use copyrighted material. GWI Zeitgeist
🍾Worldwide, around a third who moderate their drinking say it’s to avoid hangovers. A product that delivers the buzz without the aftermath is the industry’s Holy Grail - and that’s the promise behind former UK government adviser David Nutt’s work at Sentia Spirits. Now the team is taking that approach into a new category, branching into cider. GWI Alcohol
🎞️Have your cards marked, the people’s favorite for the Best Picture Oscar this year is officially “Sinners”. Though sometimes a pre-Oscar poll is best for gauging the scale of surprise for the Academy’s verdict - and last year was truly a shock, as only 1% worldwide anticipated the eventual winner, “Anora”. GWI Zeitgeist
🥞Pancake Day may be over, but here’s a stat to pair with any leftover batter: almost half of regular Cartoon Network viewers eat pancakes for breakfast. So if you’re curious who keeps pancakes in steady rotation year-round…it’s the overgrown kids. GWI USA
Meet the audience: AI optimists
Without GWI data
With GWI data
In the last few years both interest and scepticism about AI have grown, and it’s important to understand the sceptics as well as the people depicted here - an audience of those who believe “AI will benefit society”.
Yes, they’re early adopters of tech, but they’re bigger followers of pop culture than you might think. They’re more likely to want brands to be trendy or cool, which might go some way to explaining why AI’s most viral moments have included things like Ghiblification. And while much online AI discourse is founded on Twitter and Reddit, this is an audience also active on TikTok and Instagram.
And not for the first time, adding GWI data into the mix shows you an audience is likely more diverse than you might think, with AI optimists in the US much more likely to be Asian-American or Mixed Race.
Chart of the week
AI may have huge long-term potential, but its day-to-day use is clustering around a small set of tasks. So what are people actually doing with it?
For now, AI is overwhelmingly an information tool. “Gathering information” ranks well ahead of every other use case. Despite frequent advice from AI evangelists not to “treat it like Google”, that’s exactly how most people are currently using it.
And then there’s advice. It’s a broad category, people are turning to AI for help through messy situations and…situationships.
