Americans are revealing their AI secrets: Here’s what they’re saying

More than a quarter of American adults online, 27%, according to a September survey from Elon University and YouGov, say they've had significant emotional or social interactions with AI.

Olivia Tai didn't need a survey to know that. She's been collecting proof of it by hand, one anonymous notecard at a time.

Red sign, a cardboard box, and 400 secrets

The 26-year-old artist from San Francisco puts herself in malls and parks with a hand-made red sign saying "Everyone has an AI secret" and then encourages strangers to write their confession.

The artist has collected more than 400 confessions so far, putting scans of those on the website. What We Tell AI was created by her friend Arin Pantja.

The project was initially quite simple. While running AI-impact workshops in New York and San Francisco in summer 2025, Tai realised that all the discussions always ended up being very abstract.

She made participants write anonymous confessions about their experiences with AI on slips of paper, put them into a bowl and read each other’s out loud.

One note stuck with her: someone who'd cloned an ex-boyfriend's voice with AI to say a final goodbye. That single card convinced Tai to turn the exercise into a touring installation, dragging a granny cart loaded with her sign and a folder of instructions between cities ever since.

San Francisco confesses more than New York does

Tai refers to the research as an unscientific "snapshot", rather than research, since only those who are already involved with AI will be stopping by her booth anyway. Nevertheless, the geography does tell another story: whereas Bay Area confessors write freely about their use of AI at work, New Yorkers consider the same thing taboo.