Excerpt: The UAE has become the first country in the world to surpass 70 percent AI adoption among its working-age population.
The UAE has held onto the top spot in Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report for the third time in a row, with 70.1 percent of its working-age population using artificial intelligence tools in the first quarter of 2026.
The figure places the UAE ahead of Singapore, Norway, Ireland, and France, in that order. It is the first economy in the world to cross the 70 percent threshold, according to the report published by the Microsoft AI Economy Institute. The UAE extended its lead over second-placed Singapore to nearly seven percentage points.
The country’s adoption rate has climbed steadily across successive reports, rising from 59.4 percent to 64 percent and now reaching 70.1 percent. That growth rate is running at nearly four times the worldwide average.
Qatar ranked 10th globally with an adoption rate of 41.8 percent, up from 38.3 percent in the second half of 2025, confirming the Gulf region as one of the world’s most concentrated clusters of high AI adoption.
The United States ranked 21st with a 31.3 percent adoption rate, an improvement from 24th place in 2025, but still less than half the UAE’s rate.
Amr Kamel, General Manager of Microsoft UAE, said the results reflected years of deliberate policy choices. “Growth at this scale reflects deliberate, long-term investment in the right foundations, even through more challenging periods,” he said. “This milestone belongs to the UAE, to its government, its institutions, its businesses, and the people who have made AI part of how they work and learn.”
The UAE’s position at the top of the rankings is consistent with its broader policy history. In 2017, it became the first country in the world to appoint a Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence. A 2025 survey by consulting firm KPMG found UAE optimism on AI was significantly ahead of the global average. A separate study by Counterpoint Research ranked Dubai in the global top five for AI adoption, ahead of San Francisco.
Microsoft has operated in the UAE for more than three decades. The company has committed $15.2 billion to the country covering AI infrastructure, skills development, and innovation. It has set a target to skill one million learners in AI by 2027. Through its Microsoft Elevate UAE program, it has already reached more than 250,000 students and educators and more than 55,000 government employees. Microsoft and its partners are projected to contribute $74.4 billion to the UAE economy and support more than 152,000 jobs in the years ahead.
Global AI usage among the working-age population rose from 16.3 percent to 17.8 percent in Q1 2026, with 26 economies now exceeding 30 percent adoption. Large parts of the world, however, remain below 10 percent.
The gap between the Global North and Global South widened further during the quarter. Developed economies reached 27.5 percent adoption, growing at more than twice the pace of developing regions, which reached 15.4 percent. The divide widened by 1.5 percentage points compared to the second half of 2025.
Microsoft cited limited internet connectivity, access to electricity, gaps in digital skills, and the dominance of English-language AI models as the primary barriers slowing adoption in lower-income regions.
Asia was a notable growth driver during the quarter. South Korea, Thailand, and Japan recorded the greatest movement in rankings, which Microsoft attributed largely to improving AI capabilities in Asian languages.
The report also highlighted a sharp acceleration in AI-assisted software development. Git pushes, through which developers publish coding changes, rose 78 percent year on year globally, driven by tools including Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, and Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot. Contrary to concerns about AI displacing software developers, US developer employment reached a record 2.2 million in 2025, up 8.5 percent year on year.
Early data for March 2026 shows developer employment running approximately 4 percent above March 2025 levels.
