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The countries where the most people use AI, ranked

AI adoption by country varies widely, and Microsoft’s latest data shows the UAE, Singapore and Ireland leading 147 economies in the share of working-age people using generative AI

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The places that build artificial intelligence and the places that use it most are not the same. The U.S. is home to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google $GOOGL, Microsoft $MSFT, Meta $META and Nvidia $NVDA. Yet it ranks No. 21 in the world when economies are compared by the share of their people who actually use generative AI. The top of that table belongs to smaller, wealthy, densely connected economies — a Gulf state, a Southeast Asian city-state and a cluster of European countries.

Those rankings come from Microsoft’s latest report on the state of global AI diffusion, published Sept. 21 by the company’s AI Economy Institute. The report measures AI adoption by country as the share of people aged 15 to 64 who used a generative AI product during the period. It builds that estimate from anonymized Microsoft telemetry. It then adjusts the estimate for differences in device and operating-system market share, internet access and population.

The headline figure: 18.8% of the world’s working-age population used generative AI in June 2026, up from 17.8% in the first quarter. Growth showed up in almost every economy Microsoft tracks. The gap between rich and developing regions kept widening, though. Usage reached 28.8% in the Global North and 16.2% in the Global South, a spread of 12.6 percentage points.

At the very top, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore are the only economies where more than half of working-age adults use AI. Below them, the race is tight. Ireland, France and Norway are separated by half a percentage point. South Korea posted the largest gain of any economy in the quarter, and Saudi Arabia made the biggest jump in rank.

Microsoft calls its metric imperfect, and it is worth reading with that in mind. It counts how many people use AI, not how often or how intensively they use it. It also does not yet include several newer tools. The company says it will widen the set of tools it measures in its next report. It expects that change to lift measured usage almost everywhere, especially in China.

Here are the 25 economies with the highest share of AI users, in Microsoft’s order.

United Arab Emirates ranks No. 1 with 73.3% of working-age adults using AI

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The United Arab Emirates ranks No. 1 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 73.3% of its working-age population using generative AI in the second quarter of 2026. The next-closest economy, Singapore, trails it by nine percentage points.

That figure is up from 70.1% in the first quarter, a gain of 3.2 points. Only South Korea added more over the same three months. For an economy that was already in first place, that pace widened the UAE’s lead rather than simply preserving it.

The UAE’s share is close to four times the global rate of 18.8%. Nearly three in every four people aged 15 to 64 in the federation used a generative AI product during the period Microsoft measured.

The result follows years of state policy focused on AI. The UAE named a minister of state for artificial intelligence in 2017, one of the first cabinet posts of its kind anywhere. It released a national AI strategy with a 2031 horizon the same year. In 2019, Abu Dhabi opened the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, a graduate research university devoted entirely to the field.

The country’s population mix plays a role too. Foreign nationals make up the large majority of residents, and many of them work in finance, aviation, logistics and professional services. Those are sectors where office software and digital tools are part of daily work. The UAE also has some of the highest internet and smartphone penetration rates in the world. That removes a basic barrier that holds down adoption elsewhere.

One more piece of context matters. Microsoft’s figures come from its own product telemetry, and the company has a commercial stake in the region. In 2024, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42, an Abu Dhabi AI company. The report applies the same adjusted, telemetry-based method to every economy it ranks.

The UAE topped the first-quarter table as well. With the June figures, it remains the only economy above 70%.

Singapore holds No. 2 as one of only two economies above 50% AI use

Singapore ranks No. 2 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 64.3% of its working-age population using generative AI in June 2026. It and the UAE are the only two economies in the world where more than half of working-age adults use AI.

The city-state held the same rank in the first quarter, when its share stood at 63.4%. Its quarterly gain of 0.9 percentage points was modest next to the UAE’s, but it kept a wide cushion over the rest of the field. Ireland, in third place, trails Singapore by 14.4 points.

Singapore’s AI usage rate is about 3.4 times the global average of 18.8%.

Government planning has shaped that figure over more than a decade. Singapore launched its Smart Nation initiative in 2014 to digitize public services. It set up AI Singapore, a national research and talent program, in 2017, and published a national AI strategy in 2019. In late 2023, it released a second version of that strategy focused on computing capacity, talent and adoption across industry.

The economy itself favors heavy use. Singapore leans on finance, shipping, trade and professional services. Many global banks and technology companies run their Asia-Pacific headquarters from the island. A large share of the workforce does office-based work with corporate software and cloud tools.

Size helps as well. With roughly six million residents on a single main island, Singapore has dense broadband and mobile coverage and a highly educated workforce. English is the main language of business and government. Leading AI chatbots have generally performed best in English, which removes a barrier many other economies still face.

The No. 2 rank also makes Singapore the top economy in East and Southeast Asia by this measure, by a wide margin. South Korea, the next-highest economy in that region, sits at No. 12 with a share 23.7 points lower. Japan, which recorded the fastest relative growth of any economy in the quarter, stands at 24.7%. That puts Singapore’s adoption rate at more than two and a half times Japan’s.

Ireland climbs to No. 3 and leads Europe in AI usage

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Ireland ranks No. 3 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 49.9% of its working-age population using generative AI in June 2026. It climbed from No. 4 in the first quarter and is now the highest-ranked economy in Europe.

Ireland’s share rose from 48.4% to 49.9%, a gain of 1.5 percentage points. That was enough to pass Norway, which held third place in the first quarter. The margins at this level are thin. France sits just 0.3 points behind Ireland, and Norway 0.5 points behind.

Ireland’s AI usage rate is more than two and a half times the global rate of 18.8%. Roughly one in every two people aged 15 to 64 in the country used a generative AI product during the quarter.

The country’s economic structure helps explain the figure. Dublin hosts the European headquarters of Google $GOOGL, Meta $META, Microsoft and LinkedIn, among many other U.S. technology companies. Apple $AAPL’s European base is in Cork. Those employers have drawn a large, young, highly educated workforce into software, sales, operations and support roles where digital tools are central.

Ireland’s corporate tax regime has been a major factor in attracting those firms. The country’s 12.5% headline rate drew multinationals for decades. Since 2024, Ireland has applied a 15% minimum rate to large multinational groups under the OECD’s global tax agreement. The cluster of tech employers it built remains.

That cluster has a physical footprint as well. Ireland has become one of Europe’s main data center locations. Data centers used around a fifth of the country’s metered electricity in recent years, according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office.

Ireland also has one of the youngest populations in the European Union and is an English-speaking country. Both traits tend to go along with faster uptake of new consumer technology. With a population of about 5.4 million, it is a small economy that ranks well above much larger European neighbors on AI use, including Germany at No. 23.

France moves up to No. 4 on Microsoft’s AI adoption ranking

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France ranks No. 4 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 49.6% of its working-age population using generative AI in June 2026. It rose from No. 5 in the first quarter, passing Norway.

France’s share climbed from 47.8% to 49.6%, a gain of 1.8 percentage points. That was the largest quarterly increase among the six European countries in the global top 10. It now trails Ireland by just 0.3 points.

The ranking stands out because of France’s size. With roughly 68 million people, it is by far the most populous economy in the top five. The UAE, Singapore, Ireland and Norway each have populations of about 11 million or fewer. Reaching near-50% adoption across a large and varied national population is a different task from doing so in a city-state.

France has also become one of Europe’s main centers for AI development. Researchers who previously worked at Google $GOOGL DeepMind and Meta $META founded Mistral AI in Paris in 2023. It is one of the best-funded AI companies outside the U.S. and China. It has released several open-weight models, the category of AI system that Microsoft’s report highlights as a growing share of developer usage.

Paris has deeper roots in the field as well. Meta opened a Paris branch of its fundamental AI research lab in 2015. Station F, a large startup campus in the city’s 13th arrondissement, houses many young AI companies. French universities and grandes écoles produce a steady supply of mathematicians and engineers who have gone on to work at major AI labs.

Public policy has backed that ecosystem. In February 2025, Paris hosted the AI Action Summit, a gathering of world leaders and technology executives. President Emmanuel Macron used the event to announce €109 billion in private investment commitments for AI infrastructure in France.

France’s gain also kept it well ahead of other large European economies on usage. Spain sits at No. 6, the U.K. at No. 8, Germany at No. 23 and Italy at No. 26.

Norway slips to No. 5 despite nearly half of adults using AI

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Norway ranks No. 5 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 49.4% of its working-age population using generative AI in June 2026. It fell from No. 3 in the first quarter, even though its usage rate went up.

Norway’s share rose from 48.6% to 49.4%, a gain of 0.8 percentage points. That was the smallest increase of any economy in the global top 10. Ireland and France both grew faster and moved past it. The three countries are now separated by only half a point, so the order could shift again in the next report.

Even after the drop in rank, Norway’s usage rate is more than two and a half times the global figure of 18.8%. Nearly one in every two Norwegians aged 15 to 64 used a generative AI product during the quarter.

Norway has long been one of the most digitally connected countries in the world. Internet access is close to universal, and Norwegians handle much of their banking, tax filing and public services online. BankID, a national electronic identity system used for logging into banks and government services, is a routine part of daily life.

The country is also wealthy and highly educated. Norway has about 5.6 million people and some of the highest incomes in Europe, supported by oil and gas revenue. That revenue flows into the Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. The fund holds stakes in thousands of listed companies worldwide.

What stands out in Microsoft’s data is how far Norway is ahead of its Nordic neighbors. Sweden ranks No. 17 at 37.3%, Denmark No. 22 at 32.4% and Finland No. 30 at 30.6%. Norway’s share is 12.1 points higher than Sweden’s and almost 19 points higher than Finland’s. That gap holds despite broad similarities in income, education and digital infrastructure across the region.

Norway also remains the top-ranked Nordic country and the third-highest in Europe, behind only Ireland and France.

Spain stays at No. 6 with a 45.1% AI user share

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Spain ranks No. 6 in Microsoft $MSFT’s Global AI Diffusion report, with 45.1% of its working-age population using generative AI in June 2026. It held the same position it occupied in the first quarter.

Spain’s share rose from 44.2% to 45.1%, a gain of 0.9 percentage points. The country sits 4.3 points behind Norway at No. 5 and one point ahead of New Zealand at No. 7. Its usage rate is about 2.4 times the global average of 18.8%.

With a population of about 49 million, Spain is one of the three most populous economies in the global top 10, along with France and the U.K. Madrid and Barcelona, its two largest cities,........

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