A new survey of AI users reveals explosive growth in paid adoption and deep personal investment in generative tools, signaling a new phase of mass-market monetization.
The State of AI Report 2025, produced by investor Nathan Benaich and Air Street Capital, ran an online survey of AI usage habits with 1,183 participants between July 2 and September 27, 2025.
Results of the survey show that more than 95% of survey respondents use AI at work and in their personal lives, with 76% paying for the service out of their own pockets.
“In a vote for the usefulness of AI tools, 56% of respondents said they pay more than $21/month, which suggests they’re subscribing to team/pro plans that provide increased rate limits and greater intelligence. Furthermore, 9% of respondents pay more than $200/month for their services.”
Turning to organizations, the survey finds that more than 70% of firms have raised their generative AI budget this year. Only 2.9% say that their firms decreased their generative AI budget in 2025.
As for the most surprising improvements of AI, the survey notes that 28% of users experienced “Wow” moments with artificial intelligence’s coding capabilities.
“Coding was the most frequently cited surprise, with users amazed by AI’s ability to build entire applications and debug complex problems. This was closely followed by the dramatic improvements in media generation (video, image, and audio) and the power of deep research, analysis and emergent reasoning.”
For the months ahead, 55% users say they are most excited about the emergence of AI agents, followed by smaller and more efficient models at 45% and reasoning at 42%.
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