NBER's 'Mind the Gap' working paper finds 43% of US workers used AI for their job in early 2026, versus 32% of workers surveyed across Germany, UK, France, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) published a working paper in 2026 titled 'Mind the Gap: AI Adoption in Europe and the US'. This paper documented differences in AI adoption across countries, using data from surveys conducted in January-February 2026. The surveys found that 43% of US workers reported using AI for their jobs, compared to an average of 32% among workers surveyed in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
Verified 2026-09-09
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US workers use AI more than Europeans, which could affect how quickly productivity gains show up.
More on Adoption
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index, citing McKinsey's 2025 survey, breaks down AI-agent deployment by business function. Even in IT, the function with the most agent activity, the share of organisations reporting no AI-agent use at all in 2025 was still 69% of organizations report zero AI-agent use in IT, the business function with the heaviest agent activity
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index reports that organizations' use of generative AI specifically, not just AI overall, grew sharply in 2025: the share of organizations that regularly use generative AI in at least one business function reached 79%, up from 71% in 2024
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index compared generative AI's adoption curve after its mass-market debut to that of earlier transformative technologies, and found generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than the PC or the internet
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