Korea's AI adoption rate over 40%, ranks 12th place globally: report

The Korea Times - Sep 28, 2026

Korea was ranked 12th place in the global artificial intelligence (AI) diffusion scale, with more than 40 percent of the population using the technology in the second quarter, a report from Microsoft Corp. showed Monday. Generative AI usage rate among Koreans aged 15 to 64 rose 3.5 percentage points from the previous quarter, bringing the country up by four ranks as of end-June, according to the global AI diffusion report published by the U.S. software developer. Global usage rate of generative AI was up 1 percentage point from 17.8 percent in the January-March period to 18.8 percent in the April-June period, the report showed. United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the highest in AI adoption, with a usage rate of 73.3 percent. Followed by Singapore at 64.3 percent, Ireland at 49.9 percent and France estimated at 49.6 percent. The AI usage rate was 28.8 percent in the Global North and 16.2 percent in the Global South, widening the adoption gap to 12.6 percentage points. Global North is a term referring to wealthy, industrialized countries, such as the United States, Korea, Japan, Israel and New Z

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