Our Take
The trust numbers are the real story. 88% adoption with 31% trust is a ticking time bomb. Companies deploying AI need to invest in transparency and user education, not just capability.
Capability Is Not Plateauing
SWE-bench coding scores jumped from 60% to nearly 100% in a single year. Frontier models now meet or exceed human baselines on PhD-level science questions, multimodal reasoning, and competition mathematics. Generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years — faster than the personal computer or the internet.
Organizational Adoption Hits 88%
Four out of five university students now use generative AI for coursework. Over 90% of notable frontier models released in 2025 came from private companies rather than academic labs — a concerning concentration of power.
The Trust Crisis
Only 31% of Americans trust their government to regulate AI — the lowest among countries surveyed. 73% of experts view AI's impact on jobs positively, but only 23% of the general public agrees. The Foundation Model Transparency Index dropped from 58 to 40 points as companies keep more training details secret.
Safety Gap Widens
Documented AI incidents rose to 362, up from 233 in 2024. Responsible AI is not keeping pace with capability, and the US-China performance gap has essentially closed.