This working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, authored by a team including researchers from Duke University, Harvard University, and OpenAI, provides an extensive overview of how people utilise ChatGPT. The research, spanning from the chatbot's launch in November 2022 to July 2025, reveals significant insights into user demographics, conversation topics, and intent, all while employing a novel privacy-preserving methodology that avoids human review of message content. Key findings indicate a rapid, global adoption of ChatGPT, with non-work-related usage growing faster than work-related applications. The study also categorises user interactions into 'Asking,' 'Doing,' or 'Expressing,' and maps them to occupational activities through the O*NET database, highlighting decision support and information seeking as primary functions.

The Anthropic Economic Index reveals AI adoption trends across the US, highlighting state-specific usage patterns and the increasing prevalence of directive automation.

Updates to Snipping Tool, Paint, and Notepad are rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels on Windows 11. Paint introduces project files and an opacity slider, while Snipping Tool adds Quick markup for annotating screenshots. Notepad now supports AI features like Summarize, Write, and Rewrite on Copilot+ PCs.

Amazon is enhancing its Seller Assistant tool with agentic AI capabilities, allowing it to proactively manage tasks and provide strategic solutions for sellers. This advancement aims to streamline operations, allowing sellers to focus on innovation and growth.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 = stronger coding + reasoning, best at computer use, safer alignment, new checkpoints, IDE + app integrations, and the new Claude Agent SDK for devs.

While these packs save time and are beneficial for beginners and busy teams, there are concerns about potential standardization and the impact on the art of prompt engineering.