Adoption dailySecurity & identity

Today's story: Passkeys

Passkeys outpace AI agents in daily adoption growth

Security credentials are climbing faster than coding tools, signaling a change in what developers prioritize for daily use.

The numbers: Passkeys is today's fastest-rising trend: installs at 1.33× the four-week pace. Passkeys: 1.33× momentum across 1 signal. 5 of 21 trends are climbing and 2 are cooling.

Backfilled on October 7, 2026 using only data published by September 28, 2026.

Passkeys, signal by signal

Each pedestal is one signal: its height is last week's typical day against the four weeks before, and the ring marks that normal. A lit pedestal is rising 1.15× or more.

Passkeys is today's fastest-rising trend: installs at 1.33× the four-week pace.

Passkeys: 887k npm installs a day on a typical day last week, against 667k the four weeks before

Bars are single days, the line is the 7-day average, the shaded band is the last 7 days and the dashed line is the four-week typical day (median).

Data through npm 09/26, Wikipedia 09/27, HN 09/27. Source: npm downloads API.

Passkeys now lead the adoption board with 887k/day installs, a 1.33× jump from the four-week pace. AI agents follow at 653k/day with 1.21× momentum. This gap shows users are prioritizing secure access over automated coding tasks. The difference in speed highlights a practical preference for immediate utility in login workflows.

Smart glasses also climb at 1.27× momentum, though from a lower base. While AI agents see 1,178/day Wikipedia searches, Passkeys draws fewer but more targeted interest. The contrast suggests that while AI generates broad curiosity, passkeys drive specific, high-volume implementation. Developers are choosing tools that solve immediate friction points in their daily routine.

Cooling trends like Robotaxis at 0.78× momentum fade as new hardware and security tools gain traction. The rise of passkeys alongside smart glasses indicates a focus on personal interface and identity. Builders are moving away from speculative concepts toward tangible improvements in how they interact with devices and secure their work.

Watch next: Whether passkey installs sustain 1.33× momentum or plateau as AI agent adoption accelerates.

Column drafted by qwen/qwen3.8-27b from the numbers below; every figure checked against them.

The numbers

On a typical day last week, npm installs of @simplewebauthn/browser reached 887k, 1.33× the 667k of a typical day in the four weeks before.

Next on the board: Smart glasses at 1.27×, led by Wikipedia readers at 1.27× (285 on a typical day against 224).

Quiet adoption: Bun runtime installs run at 1.18× their four-week pace while attention sits at 0.86×. Developers are adding it faster than people are reading about it.

Cooling fastest: Humanoid robots at 0.66×, with Hacker News stories down to 0.4 on a typical day from 1.0. Part of that is a spike on Sep 16 in the weeks before.

The long view: OpenAI Codex installs over the last four weeks are 117× the same four weeks a year earlier (3.4M a day against 29k).

Trend pages: PasskeysSmart glassesSmall modular reactorsHumanoid robots

Quiet adoptionBroad riseOne-day spike

5 of 21 trends are climbing; Passkeys leads at 1.33×

Momentum is a typical day (median) of the last 7 divided by a typical day of the 28 before, averaged across every signal with enough data. 1× means no change. Rings mark each signal.

Data through npm 09/26, Wikipedia 09/27, HN 09/27. Source: npm downloads API, Wikimedia pageviews, Hacker News search.

3 of 7 developer tools are being installed faster than they are being read about

Across: attention momentum (Wikipedia readers and Hacker News stories). Up: install momentum (npm). Both on log scales; the 1× lines split the corners.

Data through npm 09/26, Wikipedia 09/27, HN 09/27. Source: npm downloads API, Wikimedia pageviews, Hacker News search.

AI agents draws the most Wikipedia readers against its own normal: 1.32× over the last week

Each cell is one day's readers divided by that trend's four-week typical day. Brighter runs hot, darker runs cold.

Data through npm 09/26, Wikipedia 09/27, HN 09/27. Source: Wikimedia pageviews API, user agents only.

Every number on the board
All 22 trends, September 28, 2026. Per-day figures are a typical (median) day of the last week. * = base too small to count (under 1,000 installs, 100 readers or 1 story a day).
PasskeysWeb platform1.33×Climbing887k1.33×901.12×*0.61.33×*0
Smart glassesDevices1.27×Climbing––2851.27×1.43.1×*0
Small modular reactorsEnergy1.23×Climbing––5391.24×0.00×*0
AI agentsAI agents1.21×Climbing653k1.19×1,1781.32×121.13×0
WebGPUWeb platform1.15×Climbing1.5M1.13×1411.17×0.71.05×*0
AI API SDKsAI agents1.13×Steady18M1.13×––––0
Vibe codingAI coding1.11×Steady––1,6761.22×1.11×0
SpaceX StarshipSpace1.08×Steady––1,4751.08×0.00×*0
Gemini CLIAI coding1.03×Steady64k1.03×––0.0n/a*0
Model Context ProtocolAI agents1.01×Steady10M1.14×1,6201.14×5.60.8×0
Bun runtimeWeb platform1.01×Steady715k1.18×2250.86×0.70.74×*0
Quantum computingDevices1×Steady––1,9191.1×3.00.9×1
Heat pumpsEnergy0.99×Steady––4730.99×0.12×*0
StarlinkSpace0.98×Steady––1,9890.98×0.61.46×*0
Local LLMsAI agents0.97×Steady164k0.91×7061.03×0.30.44×*0
OpenAI CodexAI coding0.96×Steady3.5M1.06×391.11×*3.70.87×0
Solid-state batteriesEnergy0.94×Steady––3700.94×0.00×*0
eVTOL air taxisSpace0.91×Steady––1900.91×0.00×*0
Claude CodeAI coding0.89×Steady2.0M0.8×––6.70.98×0
RobotaxisRobots0.78×Cooling––1950.78×0.00×*0
Humanoid robotsRobots0.66×Cooling––3721.01×0.40.43×0
Vehicle-to-gridEnergyn/aNot enough data––631.02×*0.00×*0

Method and sources

Every trend gets up to three free, daily signals. Installs: npm registry downloads for the packages named on each trend page (developer adoption; it counts CI and mirrors too, so it measures direction, not people). Attention: English Wikipedia readers per day, human agents only, and Hacker News stories with the term in the title. For each signal we divide a typical day (the median) of the last 7 complete days by a typical day of the 28 days before. Medians keep one launch-day spike from carrying a whole week; both windows are whole weeks, so weekend dips sit equally in both. Momentum is the geometric mean of the signals that clear a minimum base. npm reports some days as zero for every package at once; we treat those as missing.

The column is drafted by a free language model from the day's computed facts only, and is published only if every number in it matches those facts; otherwise the computed paragraphs stand alone. Theme labels come from Jev (or its Cloudflare Clef fallback, as noted) choosing from a fixed list of ten.

    Stages: Breakout 1.5× and up, Climbing 1.15×, Steady 0.87× to 1.15×, Cooling below. Raw data: /api/trends/2026-09-28.json.

    Mon, September 28, 2026

    Passkeys No. 1 · 1.33×

    Passkeys outpace AI agents in daily adoption growth

    Passkeys is today's fastest-rising trend: installs at 1.33× the four-week pace.

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