📈 Data to start your week
Applied AI ↑ China’s emissions ↓ Mind control ↑
Hi all,
Here’s your Monday round-up of data driving conversations this week — all in less than 250 words.
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The next exponential? The number of people with brain-computer interfaces, currently under 100, is set to more than double in the next 12 months.
Google hits 150 million — twice. Google One, the paid storage-plus subscription, has seen its user base jump 50% to 150 million since February 2024, propelled by bundled access to Gemini Advanced. Meanwhile, Gemma models have crossed 150 million Hugging Face downloads, setting off 70,000+ variants.
Public AI ↑ . The UK’s new ‘Consult’ AI tool processes public responses 1,000 times faster and at a fraction (1/400th) of the cost of traditional manual analysis by civil servants. Meanwhile, over 300 Chinese hospitals now use DeepSeek AI.
AI shopping ↑. Over a third (35%) of UK consumers rely on AI when shopping.
Stack Underflow ↓. The flagship Q&A site for developers, Stack Overflow, has seen question volume drop to levels not seen since before 2010.
Homework ↓. American education technology company Chegg’s first-quarter subscribers and revenue plummeted by nearly a third as ChatGPT is replacing traditional edtech platforms.
China’s emissions ↓. Clean energy growth in China has outpaced electricity demand for the first time, cutting national CO₂ emissions by 1% over the past year.
BlueSky users ↓. BlueSky is steadily losing users, with its count of active posters halved from its peak.
Thanks for reading. Have a great week!
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Great newsletter, as always.
I think the bullet on BlueSky is misinterpreting the data. BlueSky is not steadily losing users -- at least not according to the data linked. That data showed the number of "active posters" halving from the peak, around election day. But other activities like following and liking show stronger continual engagement. Not linear growth, but continual engagement, for sure. And those actions feel closer to user standard user activity than posting.
I actually was looking through the data while reading a profile/interview with Jay Graber by Wired this AM and ended up using it to make a point on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/bettermedia.studio/post/3lpjwy4ulus2f