"AI Adoption Expansion Warned to Deepen Gap Between Rich and Poor Nations"

Anthropic Analysis Report

There are warnings that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), which is accelerating mainly in wealthy countries, could further widen the economic gap between nations.

According to the Financial Times (FT) on January 15 (local time), Anthropic, the developer of the AI chatbot "Claude," reported that its analysis of global usage patterns showed that countries with higher per capita gross domestic product (GDP) overwhelmingly use AI more frequently for both work and personal purposes.

Artificial Intelligence. Reuters Yonhap News Agency (This photo is not directly related to the article.)

In low-income countries, AI was often used for educational purposes. The analysis also found that users with higher levels of education were able to ask more sophisticated questions, resulting in greater productivity gains from using Claude.

The countries with the highest usage of Claude were the United States, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. Peter McCrory, Head of Economics at Anthropic, pointed out that leaving the benefits of broadly valuable AI technology solely to market forces "may not be sufficient to drive high enough adoption rates."

In the case of the United States, it is expected that AI could increase the annual labor productivity growth rate by 1 to 2 percentage points over the next decade, and it is estimated that about half of all jobs could apply AI to at least 25% of their work tasks.

Previously, on January 12, the AI Economy Institute, a think tank under Microsoft (MS), issued a similar warning in its "2025 AI Diffusion Report: Deepening Digital Divide." While the global AI adoption rate has increased, the imbalance between countries has become more pronounced.

According to the report, as of the second half of last year, the global adoption rate of generative AI reached 16.3%, up 1.2 percentage points from the first half, showing steady growth. However, the gap in AI adoption rates between the Global North, led by advanced economies, and the Global South, led by emerging economies, has widened. This has led to a deepening digital divide between regions, depending on whether there was initial investment in infrastructure.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, emphasized that unless the growing AI gap is addressed, there is a high likelihood that significant economic disparities will become entrenched and further expanded.