Swiss social media use edges up as AI adoption doubles

Social media use in Switzerland has remained high and daily use has increased slightly, while the use of artificial intelligence has doubled since 2024, according to the latest Digimonitor study reported by SRF.

Two thirds of respondents said they use social media every day, while 90 percent use it at least occasionally. The rise in daily use is mainly linked to increased use among older people.

Social video platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are used much more frequently than text-based platforms such as Threads and X. Entertainment is the main activity, but more than half of social media users also consume news there. Many also use the platforms to shop or research products.

Occasional use of artificial intelligence has doubled since 2024, rising from 40 percent to 80 percent of respondents. Almost one third of the population uses AI every day. Daily use is highest among men aged 15 to 24, at 52 percent.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is by far the most widely used AI service, with almost twice as many users as Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Copilot. Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s AI tools are used by about 10 percent, while the European service Mistral is used by 3 percent.

The main uses of AI remain editing texts, translation and searching for information. Almost 40 percent of respondents use chatbots for sales advice, compared with 6 percent two years ago.

The Digimonitor does not measure the amount of time people spend using social media. It records whether services are used daily, weekly or occasionally. The study therefore does not rule out the possibility that people continue to use social media every day while spending less time on it.

The study is commissioned annually by the Interest Group for Electronic Media and conducted by WEMF through an online survey. Nearly 2,000 internet users aged 15 to 75 from across Switzerland are selected to represent the population. The survey asks about the frequency of use of services and technologies and also records information such as gender, age, education and employment.

The study’s findings also rely on respondents remembering their own behaviour. SRF reported that a separate study last year found that almost 40 percent of Swiss people viewed social media as burdensome and feared its negative effects. That increasingly critical attitude has not yet produced a measurable decline in use.