Over the past five years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a mainstream technology, changing daily life and improving workflow across industries – and its user base has also exploded, nearly tripling since 2020 to reach more than 350-million globally.
But while the US and Europe have some of the biggest AI user bases, people in several other countries actually use generative AI tools more often, with India leading the pack.
According to data from Altindex.com, India tops global AI adoption with 41% of respondents saying that AI tools are a part of their daily life – twice as many as in the US or Europe.
Since ChatGPT came out almost three years ago, generative AI tools have become popular because they’re an easy way for people to see and try out AI. But the actual use of AI-powered chatbots such as ChatGPT is still surprisingly low considering the buzz around them. The Statista Consumer Insights survey showed that roughly 3 in 10 US adults had used ChatGPT or Meta AI last year, making them the two most popular options. However, trying AI tools is one thing, but using them on a daily basis is an entirely different story, with huge differences between countries.
While the US and Europe boast some of the biggest AI user bases globally – 73-million and 58-million respectively – India, which counts 10 times fewer AI users, tops in global AI adoption. According to a Statista survey, Indians rely on gen AI tools the most, with 41% of respondents saying they use them daily. Brazil and Mexico also had higher adoption rates than the US and Europe at 33% and 24% respectively.
At the same time, around 20% of Americans said that AI tools were part of their day-to-day life – less than half the percentage in India. The top two European markets, Germany and the UK had similar shares of frequent AI users at 21% each. However, people in all these countries likely rely on AI-driven services far more than the survey suggests. Since AI is embedded in many everyday tools, most users aren’t even aware of how frequently they interact with it.
With the surging number of people embracing generative AI tools on a daily basis, the global AI user base will explode in the coming years. According to the latest Statista estimates, more than 600-million people will embrace AI tools by 2030, pushing the total user count in the AI space to a jaw-dropping 952-million. That is 220 million more users than forecast last year. Moreover, the same market projections show seven straight years of accelerating user growth ahead. With this pace of growth, the global AI user base is expected to surpass 1,1-billion by 2031 – growing as quickly as social media and smartphones, and even faster than the early days of the Internet.