Global AI adoption is growing, and so is the digital divide

Individuals, he explained, “may open fewer tools and spend less time prompting, but the work itself has changed [in that] genAI doesn’t behave like a consumer social app that needs constant engagement. It behaves more like infrastructure. Its value comes from replacing steps, not grabbing attention. When a step disappears, so does visible usage, even though dependence increases.”

This trend, said Gogia, “[also] helps explain why many developed economies look surprisingly weak on first-use measures. These markets aren’t falling behind. They’re actually further along in absorption. In digitally mature environments, AI increasingly arrives as an upgrade or a default feature, not as a shiny new tool you actively opt into.”

People inherit the capability, he said, rather than consciously adopting it, so they under-report its usage. But at the same time, he noted, “governance moves slowly. Legal review, procurement, and risk assessments delay official rollout, but behavior doesn’t wait. Employees experiment quietly, teams prototype locally, and real adoption builds long before institutions catch up.”

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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