Microsoft Global AI Diffusion Report Q1 2026 shows rising adoption

The global adoption of artificial intelligence continued to rise in the first quarter of 2026. AI usage increased by 1.5 percentage points from 16.3 percent to 17.8 percent of the world's working age population. Twenty-six economies now exceed 30 percent of their working age population using AI. The United Arab Emirates led at 70.1 percent on the National AI Leaderboard. The United States advanced from 24th to 21st place at 31.3 percent usage. Adoption accelerated in Asia, driven in part by improved capabilities in Asian languages. South Korea, Thailand, and Japan recorded the largest gains. Usage reached 27.5 percent in the Global North compared with 15.4 percent in the Global South. Microsoft measures AI diffusion through the share of people ages 15 to 64 who used a generative AI product. The figure comes from aggregated and anonymized telemetry adjusted for operating system, device market share, internet penetration, and population. AI coding tools produced a 78 percent year-over-year increase in global Git pushes. U.S. software developer employment reached approximately 2.2 million in 2025, rising 8.5 percent from the prior year to a record high. Early data showed March 2026 employment about 4 percent above March 2025 levels.