India and China dwarf everyone: an estimated 174M and 160M active AI users, far ahead of the US at 69M
Asked (summary):
List the top 50 countries by AI use since 2024 ranked by total use, the most-used models in each, and the share of population paying for AI in each country.
These 50 countries are the top of 147 economies in Microsoft's Q1 2026 AI Diffusion Report for which a usable estimate could be built: the share of working-age people actively using generative AI, multiplied by World Bank 2024 population ages 15–64. The figures are estimated active users — not visits, prompts, subscriptions, or a cumulative total since 2024; Microsoft's series aggregates data starting in late 2024. Core adoption rates are single-sourced from Microsoft's report, combined with the World Bank's independent population API.
Bar = estimated active AI users, millions. ≥40% of working-age population uses AI 20–40% <20% — hover a bar for details.
India and China alone hold about 334M of the estimated users — more than the next eight countries combined — despite mid-teens adoption rates (17.6% and 16.4%). microsoft.com
Penetration and total use tell opposite stories: the UAE (70.1% of working-age people) and Singapore (63.4%) lead the world on adoption but rank only 30th and 44th here because of small populations. microsoft.com
Country-specific most-used-model data exists for only 8 of these 50 countries; ChatGPT leads in 5 of them, while China (Doubao, 382M MAU), South Korea (HyperCLOVA X) and Russia (Perplexity, ~48% share) diverge. report-ai.org
A payment figure on the requested denominator — share of the whole national population paying for generative AI — was located for one country only: South Korea, at 7.9%. finance.biggo.com
Coverage limits. Most-used-model data is comparable on a country basis for 8 of 50 countries; the other 42 are left blank rather than filled with a global default, and the source mixes metrics — web-visit share, monthly active users, traffic rank, local-language assessments — shown beside each model but not perfectly comparable. Paying-share surveys that report a percentage among AI users or one model's users were excluded because the denominator differs; only South Korea's whole-population figure qualified.
All 50 countries
#
Country
Est. active AI users
Working-age use %
Most-used model
Model metric
Pop. paying %
Sources
Method: 50 rows — estimated active generative-AI users per country, computed as Microsoft Q1 2026 AI User Share (share of working-age people actively using generative AI; series aggregates data from late 2024) × World Bank 2024 population ages 15–64. Snapshot ranked in Q1 2026. Most-used model and metric shown only where independently reported (8 countries); population-paying share only where the denominator is all residents (South Korea). Blank cells mean no compatible data, not zero. Estimates, not measured user counts.