Window into the future 🔮

6.8 billion people have never used AI

A few days ago, this chart started spreading across X.

• Grey = never touched AI (84% of the world)

• Green = free chatbot users (16%)

• Yellow = people paying for AI tools (0.3%)

• Red = people using AI for serious work like coding (0.04%).

By the time I saw it, dozens of popular names in the space have shared it with their own take. And what fascinated me was the split in how people were reacting to it.

Camp #1

• "You're not behind. This is your generational opportunity. We're so early."

• "Nah. Bro to bro, it's go time. One day we'll look back on this as the golden age." 

• "You're not behind but those 2,499 other dots are your generational opportunity." 

Inspiring, genuinely. If you're in the AI space, this is the chart that makes you feel like you picked the right moment.

Camp #2

While the other camp including Damian Player's original framing before the chart even took off is "your timeline convinced you AI is in a bubble. Talk to a boomer above the age of 35 for five minutes. Most people don't even know what Claude is." Most people in the second camp were basically saying that the 84% not using AI are not even on tech Twitter. They're not reading this newsletter. They don't know this moment is happening. Which means all the "go time, bro" energy is, in a way, talking to itself.

There's a third thing worth saying that I haven't seen anyone mention. Damian's chart is a really good visual estimate but depending on what you count as "used AI", sources like DataReportal put global AI users closer to 1-1.5 billion. That would make the grey section slightly smaller, but the point holds. Most of the world hasn't engaged with this technology in any meaningful way. Whatever the exact figure, the direction of the story is clear.

The chart that people are reading wrong

The same week, Anthropic published a research paper that generated its own viral chart showing where AI agents are actually being used.

• Software engineering dominates at nearly 50%.

• Every other field (healthcare, legal, finance, marketing, education) are all under 5%.

The tech crowd read this as a treasure map. Garry Tan (CEO of Y Combinator) circled the under 5% categories and called it "a hundred AI unicorns waiting to be built." That framing makes sense if you're a VC. But for most working professionals, there's a simpler read: your industry hasn't figured this out yet. Which means you can.

• However, the data only reflects people building on Anthropic's tools. The 50% software engineers figure isn't saying "AI is only useful for coding" but that devs were the first to use them. Other industries are behind by months, not decades.

• Anthropic found what they call a "deployment overhang", meaning tools today can handle more than people ask. The ones who've been using them longest are starting to let them run for over 45min on complex tasks.

That's the story neither chart fully tells on its own. We're not just early in terms of who is using AI. We're early in terms of how even the people who are using it are using it.

What this means if you're a working professional

Claire Vo wrote something this week that sits in the background of both charts: companies that think they're competing aren't. The ones that have lost the arena are still running the same plays (same hiring, same processes, same quarterly reviews, etc…) while a smaller group of people moves so fast they look like they're cheating.

Her idea is if your team can't fix a bug, ship a landing page, and respond to a customer all in the same day, you're probably not in the arena anymore.

That's a sharp take. But I'd add one thing. Most of the people in the grey squares aren't losing to anyone yet. They're just not in the game at all. Which makes this moment stranger than "disruption" usually looks. It's not that a new competitor is eating your market. It's that the market is being reorganized around a new set of skills, and most people haven't noticed.

How to AI 🤖 

Every week, this section is your shortcut. Here are a couple of ways you could try AI this week that are worth your time:

• How to design using AI in 2026

• How to create content for your LinkedIn using AI

• How to write viral Youtube scripts with NotebookLM

• How to get more inbound from LinkedIn comments

One more thing 🎉

If you've been following along with Harold and the Vibe Coding Games, the closing ceremony is here. If you haven't watched any of it, this is a good place to catch the highlights and see what people actually built.

Before you go ✌️

If this landed, forward it to one person who probably doesn't know what Claude is. And if you want to stop being in the grey zone, we built the path for exactly that.

See you next Sunday!