New OpenAI Economic Research analyzing over 1.5 million ChatGPT messages from April through July 2026 reveals that workers are increasingly incorporating tasks outside their typical occupations into their regular routines.
Among roughly 6,200 consistently observed workers, cross-occupation AI activity increased from 13.1% in April to 25.9% in July. Workers prompt AI differently for these external tasks, providing more context and examples while asking shorter prompts than for role-specific work. Recurrence rates varied by task type, with 54% of workers returning to discussing goods or services and 44% to advertising writing.
The findings suggest that access to AI tools allows workers to borrow expertise from other fields, potentially broadening job responsibilities even while titles remain unchanged.