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This study employs deep ethnographic analysis of 51 daily AI chatbot users across the U.S., Germany, and Singapore to explore how perceived gains in individual agency influence conversational AI usage patterns. The findings reveal that users prioritize feelings of agency over concerns about the technology's accuracy and reliability, challenging existing trust-based models of human-AI interaction. Importantly, while users experience immediate psychological boosts to their sense of agency, these do not always lead to meaningful empowerment or enhanced capabilities in the long term.
Users prioritize perceived agency over accuracy, revealing a disconnect between immediate psychological benefits and long-term empowerment in AI interactions.
As conversational AI systems become more deeply integrated into daily life, the implications for human agency are increasingly urgent to understand. AI's potential to amplify capability sits alongside risks of individual and collective disempowerment, yet empirical, ecologically-valid evidence about cumulative usage is scarce. We analyze deep ethnographic data from a study of daily AI chatbot users (n = 51) in the United States, Germany, and Singapore to illuminate conversational AI usage in situated context as a sociotechnical practice. We show that people consistently link sustained AI usage to perceived gains in individual agency. Crucially, these perceived gains often outweigh concerns about accuracy, reliability, and consistency to shape usage patterns. Our findings challenge prevailing assumptions about how and why humans use AI systems over time, suggesting that traditional trust-based models are not sufficient for explaining human behavior with conversational AI. Finally, we expose a critical tension: immediate psychological boosts to perceived agency may not necessarily translate into material effects, structural empowerment, or long-term capacity. Our results help establish a new foundation for novel behavioral frameworks, measurement tools, and AI benchmarks to ensure conversational AI strengthens human agency in substantial, sustained ways.
