Global generative AI use hits 3.24 billion monthly

We Are Social and Meltwater have released the Digital 2027 report, which says 3.24 billion people now use generative AI tools each month.

Global internet users have reached 6.15 billion, while active social media users stand at 5.81 billion. That puts social media audiences close to the scale of global television viewership.

The data points to a broad shift in how people spend time online. Across the world's 10,000 largest web domains, total monthly web traffic has fallen by more than 10 per cent since the public launch of ChatGPT, while time spent on the web has dropped by 11.2 per cent over the past 24 months.

At the same time, people are spending more time on social media and online video platforms. The typical internet user now spends an average of 19 hours and 18 minutes a week on those services, up 3.8 per cent over the past year.

AI uptake

Generative AI adoption has risen sharply over the past 12 months. The report estimates that active users increased by 57.2 per cent in a year, adding 1.2 billion new users globally.

ChatGPT remains the largest platform by monthly active users, with roughly twice the audience of its nearest rival. Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude have also gained ground, with Gemini's mobile app users rising fourfold over the year and its web audience reaching more than 60 per cent of ChatGPT's size.

Despite that growth, search engines remain more widely used than AI tools for brand research. Online adults are still 74 per cent more likely to say they visit search engines when researching brands than to use an AI platform.

Social attention

Social media user identities now account for 69.9 per cent of the global population. The total rose by 151 million over the past year, an increase of 2.7 per cent.

YouTube captured the largest share of total global social media time, followed by WhatsApp and Instagram. TikTok led in average time spent per active user, at 1 hour and 55 minutes a day.

Younger consumers remain especially likely to turn to social platforms when researching brands and purchases. Among internet users aged 16 to 24, 46.9 per cent use platforms such as Instagram and Facebook as their main source of information for that purpose.

The typical online adult now uses an average of 5.8 different channels to discover new brands. Digital advertising spending increased by 8.7 per cent over the past year, with social media advertising up 18 per cent and influencer advertising up 15 per cent.

Singapore picture

In Southeast Asia, internet adoption stands at 82.8 per cent of the total population, while Singapore's rate is 97.4 per cent. The Singapore data points to a market with high connectivity, strong AI use and online shopping habits close to the global average.

Singapore ranked 13th globally for ChatGPT usage, with 48.7 per cent of people aged 16 and above saying they had used the platform in the past month. That compares with a global average of 34.7 per cent.

Use of AI for information search in Singapore is also slightly above the world average. The report found that 63.4 per cent of Singaporeans use AI to search for information, compared with 60.4 per cent globally, but only 23.0 per cent use AI to research potential purchases, against a global average of 26.0 per cent.

Unlike the broader global pattern, search engines remain slightly ahead of social media for brand discovery in Singapore. The figures show 33.7 per cent of users rely on search engines for that purpose, compared with 31.4 per cent for social platforms.

Weekly online purchasing in Singapore is broadly in line with global behaviour, with 55.3 per cent buying something online each week versus a global average of 55.7 per cent. Monthly payments for digital content are lower, at 63.4 per cent compared with 69.3 per cent worldwide.

The study also highlighted concern about information quality online. In Singapore, 73.4 per cent said they were concerned about online misinformation.

Suzie Shaw, Chief Executive Officer of We Are Social APAC, said: "AI is changing how people discover brands, but social remains central to where people spend their time and form preferences. The conversations, recommendations and opinions people share online are increasingly informing the answers AI gives and the decisions people make.

"For brands, that changes the game. You can optimise what you publish, but you don't control what people say about you. GEO makes the strength of your reputation and the communities you build more important than ever. The brands that win won't just be the ones that appear in AI-generated answers, but the ones people are genuinely interested in, talking about and recommending in the first place."

Mimrah Mahmood, APAC Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Meltwater, said: "Across APAC, where digital behaviours and platform preferences vary widely between markets, brands can no longer rely on a single channel to reach their audiences. With generative AI adoption surging nearly 60 per cent in the last year, the customer journey is being rewritten in real time, changing how people discover information and evaluate brands.

"To keep pace, marketers and communicators must pivot from siloed channel tracking to understanding their total brand footprint across news, social, search and AI-powered environments. Because cultural context and language heavily shape how APAC audiences perceive brands, bringing together media, social and AI intelligence is now essential for teams to spot emerging shifts and focus their efforts where it actually moves the needle."