Global AI Diffusion Q1 2026
Global AI Diffusion Q1 2026 Report: Poland ranks among the TOP 25 countries in terms of AI diffusion. Already 31% of Poles of working age use generative artificial intelligence!
Summary of the report “Global AI Diffusion Q1 2026” (Global diffusion of artificial intelligence in Q1 2026) prepared by AI Economy Institute (Microsoft):
Global growth: The share of the working-age population (15–64) using generative artificial intelligence continues to rise. The global AI diffusion rate reached 17.8% (up 1.5 percentage points compared with the second half of 2025).
Leaders of the ranking: The world leader is the United Arab Emirates with an impressive result of 70.1%. Singapore is in second place, followed by the North Atlantic countries (Norway – 48.6%, Ireland – 48.4%, France – 47.8%).
Elite group: Only 26 of the 147 economies surveyed exceeded the 30% threshold for AI adoption among the working-age population.
Widening divide (Global North vs South): There is a clear disparity in the pace of adoption. In the Global North the rate is 27.5% (up 2.8 pp.), while in the Global South it is only 15.4% (up 1.3 pp.). This difference stems from structural barriers such as access to the internet, electricity, and the level of digital skills.
Programming as the driving force: The report notes a gigantic, as much as 28-fold increase in the number of so-called pull requests on GitHub related to autonomous AI coding agents over the last 10 months.
Position and data for Poland:
Poland is among the 25 most advanced economies in the world in terms of generative AI adoption (ranking 24th).
AI adoption rate in Q1 2026: 31.0% of the working-age population in Poland uses generative AI.
Quarterly growth: This rate increased by 2.5 percentage points (from 28.5% recorded in the second half of 2025).
International context: Poland ranks just behind countries such as Germany (31.1% – 23rd place), the United States (31.3% – 21st place), and Denmark (31.2% – 22nd place), and ahead of, among others, Italy (30.2% – 25th place) and the Czech Republic (30.1% – 26th place).
In summary, Poland is steadily maintaining its place in the prestigious group of countries where over 30% of the working-age population actively uses generative artificial intelligence tools, keeping pace with the largest Western economies.
