As more and more professionals actively incorporate AI tools into their day-to-day processes, a recent Deloitte forecast is putting a spotlight on how readily people will be using AI passively, with more people using “gen AI when it’s within an existing application than those using a standalone gen AI tool.”
“In short, passive usage will exceed proactive, explicit usage in 2026 and beyond,” the 2026 Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions report says.
Perhaps nowhere is that passive usage more easily illustrated than within search, which Deloitte forecasts will see a 300% more common daily usage than any other standalone AI tool.
“With passive gen AI use, the technology is an embedded, essential but not overt capability within another application,” the report explains. “The user is not explicitly using gen AI, but this technology is core to the experience. For example, gen AI may be used to synthesize numerous responses from a search; to summarize thousands of individual product reviews; or to create content disseminated via social media or online news.”
So whereas 6% used “active” standalone tools for such uses as text, image, and coding on a daily basis in 2025, 17% used “passive” AI summaries for at least one daily search. In 2026, those active/passive numbers jump to 10% and 29%.
(Source: Deloitte)
“We further predict that in 2027, daily usage of both search modalities will rise, but the 3:1 ratio will remain: Forty percent will use search overviews daily, versus 13% for any standalone gen AI app,” the report says. “Deloitte further predicts that passive usage of gen AI inside other applications will grow fastest among groups that are currently relatively low adopters, especially those in older age brackets.”
The report also found more people were likely to have utilized those “passive” search summaries than have ever used a standalone genAI tool at any other time (51.7% to 47.5% in 2025), despite tools like AI Overviews having only been introduced in 2024. That gulf is forecast to grow to 72% against 61% by 2026.
“The prediction implies that gen AI, as a fundamental process within an existing mainstream application, will be significantly more pervasive and ubiquitous than as a standalone destination,” the report says. “If our prediction is correct, this does not imply that standalone gen AI, per se, is not useful; rather, it indicates that this technology, when integrated into an application that is already mainstream, is likely to be far more commonly used and, as such, may deliver greater overall utility.”
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