I'm not sure if the most recent title update broke the NPC AI or if it was a previous update, but I've noticed several bugs when exploring the game.
First, NPC's do not use beds at night. I've looked at every city in England and every single bed is empty. Letting time pass normally or by meditating doesn't seem to fix this. Additionally, NPC long boats, fishing boats, etc. no longer spawn in rivers like they did on launch (I remember because I would get annoyed when NPC boats would cause my longship to stop on impact).
I've reinstalled the game and loaded earlier saves, but the problem persists. I also think this issue is exclusive to PC, my friends playing on ps4 and Xbox 1 have seen NPCs using beds.