{"id":31577,"date":"2026-05-07T22:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/31577\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:07:10","slug":"ai-use-surges-globally-but-rich-poor-divide-widens-microsoft-says-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/31577\/","title":{"rendered":"AI use surges globally but rich-poor divide widens, Microsoft says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The AI adoption gap between wealthy and developing nations continues to widen.<\/p>\n

Generative artificial intelligence is being used by 17.8% of the world’s working-age population, but the gap between wealthy and developing nations continues to widen, according to a report published Tuesday by Microsoft.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter of 2026, 27.5% of people aged 15-64 in developed countries used a generative AI tool, compared with 15.4% in the developing world\u2014a gap that widened by 1.5 percentage points from the second half of 2025, according to the report’s estimates.<\/p>\n

The divide stems from significant inequality in access<\/a> to internet connectivity, basic digital skills, and electricity, according to the Microsoft AI Economy Institute.<\/p>\n

AI model performance<\/a>\u2014historically stronger in English as most of the major AI companies are based in the US\u2014is also slowing the spread of such tools in non-English-speaking countries.<\/p>\n

But progress in processing non-European languages is fueling a catch-up in adoption in some countries, particularly in Asia, the US tech giant noted.<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates tops the ranking of AI usage at 70.1%, followed by Singapore, Norway, Ireland, and France.<\/p>\n

The estimates were based primarily on measurements from computers running Windows and Microsoft products such as Bing and Copilot.<\/p>\n

They only partially captured usage on Apple devices, and consolidated data was lacking for Russia, Iran, and China.<\/p>\n

The United States\u2014home to dominant large AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini\u2014ranked only 21st, at 31.3%.<\/p>\n

AI usage in China\u2014the world’s second-largest economy which is jostling with the US for an edge in the AI race\u2014was 16.4%, the report said.<\/p>\n

Pushing back against fears of job losses driven by automation, Microsoft argued in the report that AI coding tools<\/a> “could increase demand for developer jobs.”<\/p>\n

The company cautioned, however, that “it is still too early to know the full impact” of AI on the labor market.<\/p>\n

For the first time in its history, the company itself offered voluntary departures to nearly 9,000 of its US-based employees in April.<\/p>\n

According to Layoffs.fyi, a private aggregator, nearly 99,000 people have been laid off in the tech sector since January 1, primarily in the United States.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKey concepts
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGenerative AI ethics<\/a>Artificial intelligence labor economics<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n \u00a9 2026 AFP\n <\/p>\n

\n Citation:
\n AI use surges globally but rich-poor divide widens, Microsoft says (2026, May 7)
\n retrieved 7 May 2026
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news\/2026-05-ai-surges-globally-rich-poor.html\n <\/p>\n

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\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AI adoption gap between wealthy and developing nations continues to widen. Generative artificial intelligence is being used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[420,7829,2116,2113,2114,963,684,2115,320,7828],"class_list":{"0":"post-31577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-microsoft","8":"tag-azure","9":"tag-azure-ai","10":"tag-computer-news","11":"tag-hi-tech-news","12":"tag-hitech","13":"tag-information-technology","14":"tag-innovation","15":"tag-inventions","16":"tag-microsoft","17":"tag-microsoft-ai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}