The 2026 AI Index Report from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence puts organizational AI use at 88 percent of surveyed organizations worldwide during 2025, up from 78 percent a year earlier and 55 percent in 2023. North America registered 90 percent, rising from 82 percent in 2024 and 61 percent in 2023.

Generative AI is now used in at least one business function at 70 percent of organizations. Deployment of AI agents remains in the single digits across nearly all business functions, which places most current activity in assistive tools rather than autonomous systems.

The investment picture is weighted heavily toward the United States. Global corporate AI investment more than doubled in 2025, with private investment growing 127.5 percent and accounting for 60 percent of the total. Generative AI captured close to half of all private AI funding and grew more than 200 percent. The report states that the United States committed 23 times more private AI investment than China, and that US generative AI investment exceeded the combined total of China and Europe by a wide margin. Newly funded AI companies rose 71 percent, and billion dollar funding events nearly doubled.

Consumer value followed the same curve. Estimated US consumer surplus from generative AI reached 172 billion dollars annually by early 2026, up from 112 billion dollars a year earlier, with the median value per user tripling over the same period. Population level generative AI adoption in the United States sits at 28.3 percent, ranking 24th worldwide despite the American lead in investment and model development.

Source: Stanford HAI AI Index - https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/