The explosion of generative AI has been one of the big tech stories of the last decade, but the growth of AI is not happening equally.
There are some groups more likely to use it than others, with potential unintended consequences.
Ipsos iris is the only industry backed online audience measurement platform in the UK, which can show the actual digital behaviour of people on their phones, tablets, laptops and PCs.
Through it, we can map the growth of OpenAI, which boasts the largest standalone large language model website and app in the country.
In February, one in five (19%) of all internet users in the UK used OpenAI. This has doubled from 4.6 million monthly users in February 2024 to 9.5 million 12 months later. That’s nothing short of astonishing.
The good news is that some of the age disparity in users is beginning to level out. The fastest growing user age group over those 12 months was 45-to-54 year olds, with monthly users more than doubling (+135%) over this time period.
Young people are still by some distance the most likely to visit OpenAI’s site or app, but there is a sense of normalisation among different age cohorts.
The biggest challenge in the UK is in regional inequality. Ipsos iris data suggests that Londoners (30%) are twice as likely as those in the South West of England (14%) or Scotland (16%) to be a monthly user of OpenAI.
The North West of England (19%) was the region with the second highest proportion of OpenAI users, which is still significantly behind the capital.
There could be many reasons for this, from different levels of access to high-quality internet to different local workforce needs. But this should still be a concern.
We know that AI is going to revolutionise many aspects of our lives, including our work. “AI won’t replace your job, but someone who knows AI will”, as Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia said.
If the people who all have access to and the skills to utilise AI are disproportionately concentrated in one part of the country, that is a significant challenge.
If we are not careful, AI might make existing social inequalities worse, instead of bringing about the big economic changes we hope for.
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