GenAI as a Cognitive Amplifier: Insights from Everyday Use

Opening Context 
We are living through one of the most significant technological shifts in human history, yet most of us are navigating it alone, learning as we go. Generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT have moved rapidly from the margins of technology into the heart of everyday life, reshaping how we work, learn, and think. From Dublin to Dubai, individuals are using GenAI to draft emails, plan holidays, debug code, and tutor themselves in new skills. Yet despite this rapid uptake, we know surprisingly little about how ordinary people are actually experiencing this shift. Questions around trust, knowledge, ethics, and workplace impacts remain underexplored. Published as a book chapter in AI-Driven Research Innovations in Computing and Information Science in March 2026, this research addresses that gap, offering empirical and qualitative insights into the everyday realities of GenAI use at a moment when such evidence has never been more urgently needed.

Research Overview 
This study explores what it genuinely means to live and work alongside Generative AI. Drawing on the real-world experiences of participants from diverse geographic locations and professional backgrounds, the research invites everyday users to share how GenAI has become part of their daily routines from the workplace to the home. Using an online qualitative survey, the study captures a rich and varied range of perspectives on how people adopt, experience, and question GenAI tools such as ChatGPT. The research is grounded in established theoretical frameworks, including the Technology Acceptance Model and the socio-technical perspective, which together help make sense of how people relate to, trust, and are changed by new technologies. Alongside its empirical findings, the study introduces a novel qualitative research approach, the AI-Assisted Thematic Approach, that offers qualitative researchers a practical, ethical, and transparent framework for incorporating GenAI into their analytical processes.

Key Insights / Findings 
Two findings from this research stand out as particularly significant. First, despite widespread fears that GenAI will dilute human knowledge and critical thinking, participants overwhelmingly reported the opposite experience, describing GenAI as a tool that enhances their thinking, supports learning, and enables them to focus on more creative and complex tasks. This challenges much of the prevailing rhetoric around AI dependency. Second, whilst participants embraced GenAI enthusiastically in both home and workplace settings, deep ethical concerns were consistently present, particularly regarding data privacy, misinformation, job security, and the transparency of colleagues' use of AI. Together, these findings paint a picture of a society that is neither blindly optimistic nor paralysed by fear, but thoughtfully and pragmatically finding its way in an AI-powered world.

Why It Matters (Impact & Relevance) 
This research matters because the people most affected by Generative AI, everyday users in homes and workplaces, have largely been absent from conversations shaping its future. By foregrounding their voices and experiences, this study offers something genuinely valuable to a wide range of stakeholders. Policymakers will find evidence to inform responsible AI governance frameworks. Educators will find a compelling case for rethinking how AI literacy is taught and assessed. Employers will find insights into how their teams are really experiencing AI — including fears and ethical concerns that often go unspoken. For the research community, the AI-Assisted Thematic Approach offers a practical, ethical methodology for qualitative researchers working in an increasingly AI-powered world.

Wider Context / Application / Next Steps 
This research is very much a beginning rather than an endpoint. As Generative AI continues to evolve at a pace, the need for ongoing, human-centred empirical research has never been greater. The AI-Assisted Thematic Approach introduced in this study offers qualitative researchers across all disciplines a practical and ethical framework that can be adapted, tested, and refined in diverse research contexts. In practice, the findings have immediate relevance for educators, employers, and policymakers seeking evidence-based guidance on responsible AI integration. The potential to scale this work across sectors, disciplines, and international contexts is considerable. Reflecting the growing significance of this contribution, Sage has already commissioned the authors to produce two further chapters for their new book, Research Methods Using AI for Research, a recognition that this work and ATU researchers are helping to shape how the research community thinks about and works with Generative AI.