AI differs from prior technologies in its unprecedented adoption speed. In the US alone, 40% of employees report using AI at work, up from 20% in 2023 two years ago.Such rapid adoption reflects how useful this technology already is for a wide range of applications, its deployability on existing digital infrastructure, and its ease of use—by just typing or speaking—without specialized training. Rapid improvement of frontier AI likely reinforces fast adoption along each of these dimensions. Historically, new technologies took decades to reach widespread adoption. Electricity took over 30 years to reach farm households after urban electrification. The first mass-market personal computer reached early adopters in 1981, but did not reach the majority of homes in the US for another 20 years. Even the rapidly-adopted internet took around five years to hit adoption rates that AI reached in just two years. Why is this? In short, it takes time for new technologies—even transformative ones—to diffuse throughout the economy, for consumer adoption to become less geographically concentrated, and for firms to restructure business operations to best unlock new technical capabilities.

Full report : Anthropic Economic Index report as on September 20205 Reveals Uneven geographic and enterprise AI adoption.