What does the latest Microsoft report say about global adoption?
On 8 January 2026, Microsoft published its AI Diffusion Report H2 2025, the most comprehensive study to date on the actual use of artificial intelligence worldwide. Unlike the usual self-reported surveys (where people simply say whether or not they use AI), Microsoft measures actual usage from aggregated and anonymised data on Windows and its services, then adjusts to account for phones, other operating systems and internet penetration by country.
The result is valuable because it shows concrete usage, not intent. And the global ranking that emerges is far from what one imagines when reading the French press.
At the end of 2025, 16.3% of the world's population regularly used a generative AI tool, or one person in six worldwide. That is enormous for a technology that did not exist three years ago. But behind this average lies a huge gulf: 24.7% in developed countries against 14.1% in developing countries, a difference of more than 10 points that is widening every month.
Who really dominates the global ranking?
The surprise comes from the United Arab Emirates. With 64% of the working population using AI at the end of 2025 (against 59.4% in the first half), this small Gulf state is number one in the world. To understand why, one has to go back to 2017: the Emirates appointed the world's very first Minister of Artificial Intelligence, His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, five years before ChatGPT existed. That political foresight explains their lead today.
Singapore follows in second place with 60.9%, followed by several European countries: Norway, Ireland, France and Spain are all in the top 10. Here is the full ranking:
| Country | % of working population using AI | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates | 64.0% | +4.6 points in 6 months |
| 🇸🇬 Singapore | 60.9% | +1.5 points |
| 🇫🇷 France (top 10) | ~44% | Growing steadily |
| 🇰🇷 South Korea (18th) | 30.0% | +80% since late 2024 (world record) |
| 🇺🇸 United States (24th) | 28.3% | Dropped one place |
| 🇨🇳 China | ~20% | Has doubled since DeepSeek (January 2025) |
The American paradox: innovation leader, usage laggard
Here is a statistic that few media outlets report: the United States has fallen from 23rd to 24th place worldwide in six months. The country that invents AI, that is home to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta, that has 120 data centres in Silicon Valley alone, does not even make the global top 20 for actual usage. Only 28.3% of the American working population uses AI regularly.
>>The reason is simple: mastery of the technology does not spread automatically to the population. Smaller countries that are more digitalised and more politically proactive (such as the UAE or Singapore) are moving much faster than the giants. It is exactly the same lesson as with the smartphone: South Korea and Japan had higher adoption rates than the United States, even though the iPhone is American.
South Korea, the growth champion
The real phenomenon of 2025 comes from Korea. In just six months, the country jumped from 25th to 18th place worldwide, the biggest gain of the entire year. Its AI usage growth since the end of 2024 has reached +80%, more than double the global average (35%). Korea is now the 2nd largest market in the world for paid ChatGPT, just behind the United States.
Three factors explain this success. First, aggressive national policies (creation of a National AI Strategy Committee in September 2025). Second, the major improvement in the quality of Korean-language models, which had been a brake before 2025. Finally, an unexpected cultural phenomenon: in April 2025, "Studio Ghibli"-style images generated by ChatGPT-4o went viral on Korean social networks. This trend introduced AI to millions of users who would never have tried it otherwise, and many stayed once the fad had passed.
This Korean anecdote reveals something important: entertaining, viral uses often serve as a gateway to AI. The barrier is not technical, it is psychological. Once a user has generated a Ghibli image for fun, they then dare to ask for help drafting an email or planning their holidays. The countries that understand this win.
And China? The scenario nobody saw coming
The Chinese story is completely different. Before January 2025, AI usage in China was stuck at around 10% because of restrictions on Western services and the cost of local models. Then DeepSeek released its R1 model on 20 January 2025, open source and free. Within a few weeks, AI usage in the country doubled to reach 20%.
More importantly, DeepSeek allowed China to export its model to countries where Western services are hard to access or too expensive: 89% market share in China, 56% in Belarus, 49% in Cuba, 43% in Russia, 39% in Iran. China did not win by using American ChatGPT; it built its own ecosystem and exported it to the countries that had no choice.
And Africa, the great forgotten continent of every ranking
Here is the subject nobody really talks about, even though it is probably the most interesting in the long term. Africa is adopting AI 2 to 4 times faster than Western countries in several key markets, according to the Microsoft report. But the peculiar thing is that it is not with ChatGPT. It is with DeepSeek.
The reasoning is simple: ChatGPT Plus costs 20 dollars a month, the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage in several African countries. DeepSeek is free, runs on any phone and delivers very similar results. For a student in Lagos, a developer in Nairobi or a shopkeeper in Johannesburg, the choice is quickly made. Bloomberg reported in late 2025 that DeepSeek beats OpenAI and Google in several African markets.
This dynamic is rarely mentioned in the Western press, but it is shaping a future in which global AI will no longer be dominated solely by Silicon Valley. If Africa continues at four times the Western pace and remains overwhelmingly on Chinese models, the global technological balance of power could shift faster than expected.
Why France fares well among individual users
With around 44% adoption according to the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report in late 2025, France is in the global top 10 for personal use. That is an excellent score, in sharp contrast with its lag in business (only 10%, as we detailed in our previous article).
How can this paradox be explained? The French adopt AI quickly in their private lives for three reasons: ChatGPT and Mistral have a high-quality French-language interface, higher education and schools adopted these tools en masse in 2024-2025, and French debating culture finds in AI an ideal intellectual partner. But when the same French person arrives at the office, they find themselves in a company that has not yet migrated to the cloud, that hesitates between sovereign and foreign solutions, and that has no clear AI strategy.
If France has almost closed its gap on the consumer side, the falling behind now plays out solely in companies. It is paradoxical: we have the users, we have the researchers (4,000 specialists, 1,000 startups, 2.5 billion raised in 2025), we even have the confidence of executives (58% consider AI indispensable). What is missing is the move to action on the part of employers and management.
What this changes for understanding tomorrow's world
Three dynamics are taking shape for 2026-2027. First, the spread of AI is no longer a fight of the USA against China. It has become a global patchwork in which the Emirates, Singapore and South Korea are moving faster than the United States, and in which Africa is adopting Chinese tools en masse while Europe remains loyal to American tools.
Second, a country's competitive advantage no longer rests solely on creating models. The United States creates the best models in the world but does not use them as much as others. The real battle is now about actual diffusion across the population, and that is terrain where political innovation counts as much as technical innovation.
>>Thirdly, Africa could become the most important strategic battleground of the next three years. With adoption growing 2 to 4 times faster than in the West, and a growing dependence on Chinese models, this is probably where the real global AI balance of power will be decided. It remains to be seen whether Europe will be able to respond to this African dynamic, or whether it will continue to watch the balance of power shift without it.