South Korea's generative artificial intelligence (AI) adoption rate reached 31.7% in the first quarter of this year, up 5.8 percentage points from June last year, marking the fastest growth among AI-using countries worldwide, according to Microsoft's AI Economy Institute.
According to the "Q1 2026 AI Diffusion Report" released by the AI Economy Institute on Tuesday, the global AI adoption rate reached 17.8% in the first quarter of this year based on the working-age population (15-64). This represents a 1.5 percentage point increase from the previous quarter's 16.3%. By country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had the highest AI adoption rate at 70.1%, followed by Singapore at 63.4% and Norway at 48.6%.
The report particularly highlighted the growth in AI consumption across Asia, including South Korea. In fact, 12 of the 15 countries with the fastest increase in AI user share since June last year are in Asia. Thailand, Japan, Mongolia, Iran, Laos, and Turkey all posted growth rates of over 30%. Among them, South Korea stood out with remarkable growth. Korea's AI adoption rate rose from 25.9% in June last year to 30.7% in the second half of last year, and further climbed to 37.1% in the first quarter of this year.
The report identified three factors behind Korea's surge in AI adoption: national policies promoting AI use, the emergence of the latest AI models with improved Korean-language performance, and the expansion of consumer features that resonated with general users.
The report also analyzed that the strengthening of Korean-language support contributed to the increase in generative AI use. As performance in non-English languages improved, AI became easier to use for everyday purposes such as writing messages, searching, learning, and creating content. As a result, usage grew rapidly not only among developers but also among general users including students, office workers, and creators. "In Korea, ChatGPT use surged following the release of GPT-5, which significantly improved Korean-language performance, and AI adoption rose by about 5 percentage points in the second half of last year," the report said.
