Anthropic released a new edition of its Economic Index, offering fresh insight into how artificial intelligence is reshaping work as users increasingly rely on autonomous AI agents rather than traditional chatbot interactions.
The report found that Claude usage has evolved significantly over the past year, with long-running agentic tasks through Claude Code and Cowork becoming more common. Anthropic said the shift prompted changes to how it measures AI adoption, including higher-frequency data sampling, new conversation classifiers, and the April launch of its first Economic Index Survey.
Among the report’s findings, AI usage closely tracked the rhythms of daily life and work. Business-related conversations declined on weekends while personal uses—including emotional support, medical questions, and investment advice—increased. Tax-related requests also surged ahead of the U.S. filing deadline, while recipe requests peaked around dinner time and sleep-related questions spiked before dawn.
Anthropic also found that Claude’s outputs are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Explanations, documents, and reports were the most common deliverables, while conversations tied to higher-paying occupations generally consumed more computing power, suggesting AI is being used for increasingly complex knowledge work.
