South Africa is the highest-ranked nation on the African continent for adoption of generative AI, in accordance with new information from Microsoft – although the figures additionally present simply how far the continent as an entire is trailing the remainder of the world.
Microsoft’s International AI Diffusion Q1 2026 report (PDF), printed by the corporate’s AI Economic system Institute, estimates that 23.1% of South Africa’s working-age inhabitants used a generative AI product within the first quarter of 2026, up from 21.1% within the second half of 2025. Microsoft’s information locations South Africa forty sixth of the 147 economies it measures – forward of each different African nation included within the dataset.
The hole to the remainder of the continent is vast. The subsequent-highest African economies are Namibia and Botswana, each at about 15%, adopted by Egypt at 14.8%. Nigeria sits at 10.1% and Kenya at simply 8.7%. Most of sub-Saharan Africa clusters close to the underside of the worldwide desk, with Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and others beneath 8%.
Microsoft derived its AI diffusion measure from aggregated, anonymised telemetry from its personal merchandise, adjusted for variations in working system and machine market share, web penetration and inhabitants. The corporate conceded that “no single metric is ideal” and described it because the strongest cross-country measure presently obtainable. The figures are due to this fact Microsoft’s modelled estimates reasonably than a exact headcount.
The report exhibits a widening hole between wealthy and poor economies. Microsoft estimates that AI utilization within the International North reached 27.5% within the first quarter of 2026, up 2.8 share factors from the second half of 2025, whereas the International South rose only one.3 factors to fifteen.4%. Adoption within the North, in different phrases, is rising greater than twice as quick as within the South.
Foundational constraints
The report attributes the divide to foundational constraints that will likely be acquainted to South African readers: unreliable electrical energy, restricted web connectivity and gaps in digital expertise. Utilizing Microsoft’s figures, the International North has electrical energy entry of about 98% and web entry of 90%, in opposition to 89% and 66%, respectively, within the South. Till these gaps shut, the report argues, the advantages of AI will stay inconsistently shared.
On the prime of the worldwide rating, the United Arab Emirates leads on 70.1%, adopted by Singapore on 63.4%. Microsoft says Asia has grow to be the first engine of development, with 12 of the 15 fastest-growing economies since June 2025 positioned within the area – a surge the report hyperlinks partly to AI fashions turning into markedly higher at dealing with Asian languages.
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The report’s clearest proof of AI’s near-term financial affect is in software program growth. Microsoft says international “git pushes” – the mechanism by which builders add code modifications – rose 78% yr on yr, whereas the variety of new code repositories grew 45%.
Exercise tied to AI coding brokers has grown sharply: merged pull requests related to such brokers rose from about 83 000 in Could 2025 to 2.3 million in March 2026, although Microsoft says this captures solely a fraction of AI-assisted growth.
The report leans closely on coding instruments from Anthropic and OpenAI, and on Microsoft’s personal GitHub Copilot, because the drivers of this shift.
Notably, the report pushes again on the concept AI is eroding demand for builders, at the least to this point. Citing US Bureau of Labor Statistics information, Microsoft says complete US software program developer employment reached a file of about 2.2 million in 2025, up 8.5% yr on yr, with March 2026 working about 4% forward of a yr earlier. It concludes that as AI lowers the price of constructing software program, organisations reply by constructing extra of it. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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