As AI use surges across the EU, who are the countries and age groups using it most?

Euronews · Feb 16, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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As AI use by individuals surges, new data shows that more than one-third of individuals across the 38 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) used generative AI tools in 2025. In the European Union, Greeks, Danes, and Estonians were among the citizens using generative AI tools the most in the last three months of 2025 across 25 EU countries. Young people, on average, use generative AI tools by far the most across the EU, with Greece and Estonia showing the highest levels of people aged between 16 and 24 years using them. In contrast, Romania, Italy, and Poland have the lowest shares of citizens claiming to use the Internet for generative AI tools. Men in 21 EU countries used AI tools more than women. Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Croatia were the only EU countries registering the opposite. How is education intertwined with AI usage? In all but one of the EU countries analysed, citizens with high levels of education use AI tools, like ChatGPT and Gemini, the most on average. The only exception is Ireland, where people with a low level of education use AI tools the most. Students are the top users of AI tools in all 25 EU countries. Roughly four in 10 young EU citizens were more likely to use AI tools for formal education than the general population in 2025, according to the latest Eurostat data. The use of generative AI for private purposes was also more common among young people (44.19%) than among the general population (25.09%). In addition, AI adoption is widespread among those connected to the labour market, including people in employment and those unemployed. Individuals in households with the highest incomes are the main users in 22 EU countries, with the highest value observed in Slovenia. On the other hand, Belgian and Slovakian citizens in a household with the lowest income levels reported being the highest AI users.