# U.S. Ranked 21st as Global Generative AI Use Reached 18.8% in Q2

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/44479
Published: 2026-10-30T09:35:30.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-30T09:35:30.000Z
Section: Technology

> A June estimate covered people ages 15 to 64; use reached 28.8% in the Global North and 16.2% in the Global South.

Generative AI product use reached 18.8% among people ages 15 to 64 worldwide in June 2026, while the United States ranked 21st at 33%. The U.S. rate was above the global average but below the leading countries in the ranking.

The global estimate rose 1 percentage point from the first quarter and 2.5 points from the second half of 2025, when it stood at 16.3%. The June measure tracks whether people in that age group used a generative AI product during the period.

The United Arab Emirates ranked first at 73.3%, followed by Singapore at 64.3%. Ireland placed third at 49.9%, France fourth at 49.6% and Norway fifth at 49.4%. The U.S. rate increased 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter.

South Korea ranked 12th at 40.6% after recording the largest second-quarter increase among the top 25 countries, gaining 3.5 percentage points.

Use was 28.8% in the Global North and 16.2% in the Global South. The gap between the groups reached 12.6 percentage points, compared with 10.6 points in the second half of 2025. Use increased in both groups.

The estimate draws on aggregated, anonymized telemetry adjusted for operating-system and device-market share, internet penetration and population. It measures product use, rather than workplace adoption, paid subscriptions or AI model development.

Microsoft chief data scientist Juan Lavista Ferres said, “No single metric is perfect, and this one is no exception.” Microsoft plans to add more tools to its next report, a change expected to raise measured use in nearly all economies, especially China, where several widely used domestic tools are not included in the current measure. The increases would primarily reflect broader tool coverage.

In a 2025 survey spanning 47 countries and 48,340 respondents, 58% of employees said they used AI at work regularly or semi-regularly. The share reached at least 80% in India, China, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Those figures reflect self-reported workplace use, a different measure from estimated population-wide product use.