Global AI Use Rose in Early 2026 as Asia Led Adoption Growth
Microsoft’s latest AI diffusion report showed faster adoption across Asia, rising AI-assisted coding activity and a wider gap between developed and developing economies.
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[Image source: Chetan Jha/MITSMR India]
Global use of generative artificial intelligence rose in the first quarter of 2026, with Asia recording some of the fastest adoption growth and software development emerging as a clear area of increased activity, according to Microsoft’s latest Global AI Diffusion report.
AI usage increased to 17.8% of the world’s working-age population in the quarter, up from 16.3% in the second half of 2025.
Microsoft measures AI diffusion as the share of people aged 15 to 64 who used a generative AI product during the period, based on aggregated and anonymized Microsoft telemetry adjusted for device share, internet penetration and population.
Twenty-six economies now have AI usage rates above 30% of their working-age populations.
The United Arab Emirates remained the top-ranked economy on Microsoft’s AI diffusion index, with a usage rate of 70.1%. The US moved from 24th to 21st, with usage at 31.3%.
Asia recorded a broad acceleration. Twelve of the 15 fastest-growing economies since June 2025 were in Asia, each with at least 25% more AI users than in June 2025.
Growth was led by South Korea at 43.2%, Thailand at 36.4% and Japan at 34.1%, while Mongolia, Iran, Laos and Turkey also posted gains above 30%.
Microsoft said the surge appears to reflect stronger local-language and multimodal AI capabilities, which have expanded the relevance of AI tools across more user groups.
In Japan, AI adoption rose by 3.4 percentage points in the quarter, more than three times the global average, as the country moved from 56th place in the first half of 2025 to 48th in the first quarter of 2026.
The report also pointed to a sharp rise in AI-assisted software activity.
“Git pushes increased 78% year over year globally,” Microsoft said, referring to the upload of code changes by developers.
In Japan, developers uploaded 129% more code changes to GitHub than a year earlier.
Microsoft said early evidence suggests AI coding tools may be increasing software development activity rather than reducing demand for developers.
US software developer employment reached about 2.2 million in 2025, up 8.5% from a year earlier, and March 2026 employment was about 4% higher than in March 2025, according to the report.
The report also found that the adoption gap between developed and developing economies is widening. AI usage reached 27.5% in the Global North in the first quarter, up from 24.7% in the second half of 2025, while usage in the Global South rose to 15.4% from 14.1%.
Microsoft said the divide reflects gaps in reliable electricity, internet connectivity, digital skills and local-language access, warning that the benefits of generative AI may remain unevenly distributed unless those constraints are addressed.
