South Africa’s adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating, although the country still trails leading global markets, as the divide between developed and developing economies widens.
This is according to the latest Global AI Diffusion Q1 2026 Trends and Insights report released by Microsoft, conducted through its AI Economy Institute.
The study analysed AI adoption trends across 147 economies, including United Arab Emirates (UAE), US, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Nigeria, Egypt, India and Brazil.
The research methodology combines aggregated and anonymised usage signals from Microsoft consumer AI products and services, with external economic and demographic datasets to estimate AI adoption among the working-age population across economies.
The report finds that worldwide AI usage rose from 16.3% to 17.8% of the global working age population during the first quarter of 2026.
The study ranks SA at 46th of the 147 economies it measures – above all other African countries included in the study.
It estimates that 23.1% of SA’s working-age population used an AI product in the first quarter of 2026, up from 21.1% in the second half of 2025.
“Our latest AI Diffusion report findings show that AI is moving rapidly from experimentation to practical, everyday use, but the benefits are not yet evenly shared,” explains Ravi Bhat, commercial solutions and AI officer at Microsoft South Africa.
“For SA, the rise in local AI usage to over 23% is encouraging progress, yet our position globally underscores the urgency of investing in digital infrastructure and skills. We view this phase of AI growth as an opportunity to help ensure AI supports inclusive growth, innovation and long-term competitiveness across South Africa’s economy.”
A report by Google and Ipsos shares similar sentiments. It shows that South Africans are adopting AI at rates above the global average, using it for learning, career development and everyday tasks.
“South Africans are rapidly embracing AI, using it not just for experimentation but as a practical tool for learning, work and making life decisions,” notes the study.
“This growing adoption is enabling locals to upskill, explore career opportunities and manage everyday tasks, highlighting AI’s expanding role as a driver of education, productivity and personal empowerment across SA.”
According to the Microsoft report, the five leading economies for AI adoption are the UAE, followed by Singapore, Norway, Ireland and France.
At a global level, the UAE retained the top spot on Microsoft’s National AI Leader board with AI diffusion of 70.1%, while 10 economies now report AI usage levels above 40%, placing them among the world’s highest-adoption markets.
These countries, it says, form the leading global cohort of high AI-adoption economies, with usage levels significantly above the global average.
The report found that the intensity of use among economies with the highest rates of AI diffusion also increased, with 26 economies now exceeding 30% of the working age population using AI.
These trends, it points out, suggest AI diffusion is becoming broader, faster and more embedded in everyday economic activity across leading markets.
“AI diffusion is entering a new phase: broader, faster and more practical, but also one that requires deliberate action to ensure its benefits are shared globally.
“When developer productivity increases, the cost of building software declines, enabling organisations to build software across a wider range of use cases, including across broader economic sectors,” it states.
The report highlights how AI adoption is accelerating unevenly across regions, with economies in the Global North continuing to outpace those in the Global South.
According to the findings, AI usage in the Global North climbed to 27.5% in Q1 2026 from 24.7% in the previous reporting period, while adoption in the Global South rose more slowly from 14.1% to 15.4%.
“Adoption in the north is growing more than twice as fast as in the south. This divide reflects the systemic challenges facing the Global South, underscoring the need to address foundational gaps in electricity, connectivity, digital skills and local language access. Until these gaps are addressed, the benefits of generative AI will remain unevenly distributed, risking a deepening of existing global inequalities,” the report states.
According to Microsoft, language accessibility remains one of the most significant barriers to wider AI adoption across Africa, with many African languages still underrepresented in AI training datasets and models.
The findings also suggest software development is emerging as one of the clearest indicators of AI’s economic impact.
According to the report, Africa had an estimated 4.7 million developers in 2024, citing research from Boston Consulting Group. SA accounted for more than 500 000 developers, with the local developer base growing by nearly 15% between 2019 and 2024.
Microsoft’s report also found global Git pushes increased by 78% over the past year, while new repositories rose by 45%, reflecting growing software development activity linked to AI-assisted coding.
Git push is the primary way developers share their work with teammates and synchronise changes across different machines through platforms such as GitHub or Bitbucket.
“Interestingly, the quarter brought added evidence that, at least for now, AI coding capabilities may be increasing demand for the employment of software developers.
“When developer productivity increases, the cost of building software declines. If demand for software is elastic, organisations can respond by building more software across a wider range of use cases, including across broader economic sectors,” the report states.
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