It’s About Time: The Temporal and Modal Dynamics of Copilot Usage

arXiv:2512.11879v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: We analyze 37.5 million deidentified conversations with Microsoft’s Copilot between January and September 2025. Unlike prior analyses of AI usage, we focus not just on what people do with AI, but on how and when they do it. We find that how people use AI depends fundamentally on context and device type. On mobile, health is the dominant topic, which is consistent across every hour and every month we observed – with users seeking not just information but also advice. On desktop, the pattern is strikingly different: work and technology dominate during business hours, with “Work and Career” overtaking “Technology” as the top topic precisely between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. These differences extend to temporal rhythms: programming queries spike on weekdays while gaming rises on weekends, philosophical questions climb during late-night hours, and relationship conversations surge on Valentine’s Day. These patterns suggest that users have rapidly integrated AI into the full texture of their lives, as a work aid at their desks and a companion on their phones.