What people ask about AI assistants in 2026: method, findings and limits
By Bot Tutorials · Published Oct 29, 2026 · Updated Oct 29, 2026 · Facts last verified Oct 29, 2026
Our research into what people search for about AI chatbots in 2026. It shows the sources we used, the seven recurring themes we found, and what we could not measure.
1. Method
We collected Google autocomplete suggestions for about 28 seed phrases (for example “is chatgpt”, “claude vs”, “how to cancel”) on Oct 29, 2026, and read published third-party studies. Autocomplete shows which phrasings exist. It does not show search volume, so we give no volumes.
2. Findings: seven recurring themes
- Cost and free tiers (“is X free”)
- Usage limits and resets
- Head-to-head comparisons
- Privacy and deleting data
- Getting better answers
- Office and Workspace integrations
- Coding tools
Each theme links to an answer page in Answers.
3. Third-party context
Published studies we read report that practical guidance is a large share of ChatGPT use, and that interest in Claude and Gemini searches grew fast year over year while Perplexity was flat. They are secondary sources with their own methods, so we report them as their claims. Details and links are in the research notes behind this page.
4. What we couldn't measure
Reddit returned 403 errors to our checker. Google Trends, YouTube and People Also Ask couldn't be read directly. No figures from those sources appear here.