More than one in three people worldwide now use generative AI each month, while social media user identities have reached 5.81 billion, according to Digital 2027, the latest annual digital trends report from We Are Social and Meltwater.
Generative AI adoption accelerates
The report estimates that active users of generative AI tools have reached 3.24 billion, equivalent to 38.9% of the global population. This represents growth of 57.2% over the past 12 months, adding 1.2 billion new users.
ChatGPT remains the market leader, attracting twice as many monthly active users as its nearest rival. However, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude are gaining ground: active users of Gemini’s mobile apps increased fourfold over the past year, while its web user base is now more than 60% the size of ChatGPT’s.
For Asia-Pacific brands, the findings point to a rapidly changing discovery environment. Mimrah Mahmood, Meltwater’s APAC vice-president of enterprise sales, said generative AI adoption in the region has surged by nearly 60% in the past year and is “rewriting” the customer journey in real time.
Social platforms retain attention
Social media user identities now stand at 5.81 billion, or 69.9% of the global population, after rising by 2.7% and adding 151 million new identities over the past year.
The typical internet user now spends an average of 19 hours and 18 minutes per week on social media and online video platforms, an increase of 3.8% year on year. YouTube captured the largest share of total global social media time, followed closely by WhatsApp and Instagram. TikTok led on average time per active user, at one hour and 55 minutes daily.
Social platforms remain influential in commerce, particularly among younger consumers. Nearly 47% of internet users aged 16 to 24 use platforms such as Instagram and Facebook as their primary source of information when researching brands and potential purchases.
Online behaviour is changing
The report also highlights a decline in traditional web activity. Across the world’s top 10,000 web domains, monthly traffic has fallen by more than 10% since ChatGPT’s public launch, while total time spent using the web has declined by 11.2% over the past 24 months.
Despite AI’s momentum, online adults remain 74% more likely to visit search engines than AI platforms when researching brands. The typical online adult now uses an average of 5.8 channels to discover new brands, underscoring the need for a broader view of brand visibility.
“AI is changing how people discover brands, but social remains central to where people spend their time and form preferences,” said Suzie Shaw, chief executive of We Are Social APAC. She added that brands cannot control what people say about them, making reputation and community-building increasingly important for visibility in AI-generated answers.
Implications for APAC marketers
Mahmood said brands in Asia-Pacific can no longer rely on a single channel to reach audiences, given wide variation in digital behaviours and platform preferences across markets. He argued that marketers must move beyond siloed channel tracking to understand their total brand footprint across news, social, search and AI-powered environments.
The report draws on data from GWI, Similarweb, Statista and other sources, and also notes that global digital advertising spend rose 8.7% year on year, with social media advertising up 18% and influencer advertising up 15%.
