The AI Diffusion Index

Global AI Diffusion Q1 2026 Trends and Insights

Report Data

Across one hundred and forty-seven economies, the share of the working-age population using generative AI has steadily increased since June 2025. The United Arab Emirates leads, with Singapore and much of the North Atlantic close behind. Meanwhile, large parts of the world, shown in pale blue, remain below the ten percent threshold.

Highest AI Diffusion
Largest Quarterly Gain
Global AI Diffusion
Economies Above 30% AI Diffusion
AI user share, % of population
010203040506070+
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AI diffusion is measured as the share of people between ages of 15 and 64 who have used a generative AI product. This measure is derived from aggregated and anonymized Microsoft telemetry and adjusted to reflect differences in OS and device-market share, internet penetration, and country population. Additional details on the methodology are available in our AI Diffusion technical paper.
North America
    Europe
      Middle East
        Asia-Pacific
          Latin America & Caribbean
            Africa
              Momentum

              Where AI adoption is growing fastest

              The fifteen economies with the largest quarter-over-quarter gain in AI adoption. The change in adoption rate is measured by the difference in percentage points (pp) from Q1 2026 and H2 2025. For example, a move from 29% to 32% is a gain of 3 percentage points.

              H2 2025 share
              Q1 2026 gain
              The Rise

              A growth wave in Asia

              Beyond the world's leading economies, Asia is experiencing a broader surge. Twelve of the fifteen fastest-growing economies since June 2025 are Asian, each adding at least 25% more AI users over the period. Growth is led by South Korea (+43%), Thailand (+36%), and Japan (+34%), with similarly strong gains across Mongolia, Iran, Laos, and Turkey, all above 30%. The pattern spans advanced and emerging economies alike, extending through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Unlike the previous chart, which measures the change in adoption rate, growth here is measured by the percent increase in the number of AI users over the period.

              Asia
              Other regions

              % increase in number of AI users since June 2025 (H1 2025 → Q1 2026).

              Trajectory

              AI diffusion over time by economy

              Rank movement within the top twenty-five economies (the leaders by Q1 2026 share). Ribbon vertical position encodes rank in this cohort; the right-hand pill shows the absolute change in user share over the period. Hover any row to isolate one economy's path.

              H2 2025 AI diffusion Q1 2026 AI diffusion

              Rank-and-share comparison between H2 2025 and Q1 2026 across the top twenty-five economies by Q1 2026 AI user share.

              The Divide

              The widening divide between Global North and Global South

              In Q1 2026, 27.5% of the population in the Global North used generative AI, up from 24.7% in H2 2025, a gain of 2.8 percentage points. In the Global South, usage reached 15.4%, up from 14.1%, a gain of just 1.3 percentage points. Adoption in the North is growing more than twice as fast as in the South. This divide reflects the systemic challenges facing the Global South, where limited access to electricity, internet connectivity, and digital skills continue to constrain adoption. Until these foundational gaps are addressed, the benefits of generative AI will remain unevenly distributed.

              Usage by region
              Region H1 2025 H2 2025 Q1 2026 Change
              Global North 22.9% 24.7% 27.5% +2.8
              Global South 13.1% 14.1% 15.4% +1.3
              World 15.1% 16.3% 17.8% +1.5
              Gap
              North minus South              		 9.8pp 10.6pp 12.1pp widening →
              Structural challenges
              Global North Global South

              Sources: World Bank Total Population 2024; Share of the population with access to electricity, Our World in Data; Individuals using the Internet 2024, ITU; Internet users with basic information and data literacy skills, ITU.

              Acceleration

              Coding as a leading indicator of AI diffusion

              AI is reshaping how software gets built, and developer activity on GitHub reflects the shift. Over the past year, global Git pushes rose 78%, and new repositories increased 45%. Meanwhile, GitHub pull request activity tied to AI coding agents has surged more than 28×. The acceleration coincides with major model advances: Anthropic's Claude Opus and OpenAI's GPT-5 Codex family advanced the state of the art in real-world software engineering, while GitHub Copilot evolved into a broader AI coding platform with multi-model support and autonomous coding agents. Copilot, and other AI coding tools like Claude Code and Codex, are now active participants in the software development lifecycle.

              Git pushes globally

              380M

              Quarterly · Q1 2020 to Q1 2026

              New repositories created

              21.3M

              Quarterly · Q1 2020 to Q1 2026

              GitHub pull requests associated with AI agents

              2.3M

              Monthly · May 2025 to Mar 2026