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 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, representing a growth of 57.2% over a 12-month period. It also affirmed ChatGPT’s dominance while ceding that Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude as gaining ground.
For Asia-Pacific brands, Mimrah Mahmood, Meltwater’s APAC vice-president of enterprise sales, said generative AI adoption in the region noted the surged of nearly 60% in the past year suggesting a “rewriting” of the customer journey in real time.
Social platforms behaviour
BETA RESEARCH CENTER. ADVISORY: SOCIAL MEDIA USER IDENTITIES AND GENERATIVE AI USERS MAY NOT REPRESENT UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS. NOTES: WHERE AVAILABLE, THE FIGURE FOR URBANISATION
REPRESENTS THE U.N.’S REPORTED VALUE FOR THE PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL POPULATION LIVING IN TOWNS AND CITIES. FIGURES FOR GENERATIVE AI USE ONLY INCLUDE THE USE OF STANDALONE
GENERATIVE AI PLATFORMS, AND DO NOT FACTOR THE USE OF AI FUNCTIONALITY WITHIN OTHER SOFTWARE OR APPLICATIONS. COMPARABILITY: BASE REVISIONS; SOURCE CHANGES. SEE NOTES ON DATA.
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.
The report concludes that 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 acknowledged a decline in traditional web activity, with monthly traffic across the world’s top 10,000 web domains, falling by more than 10%. Total time spent using the web has also declined by 11.2% over the past 24 months.
Despite the accelerating adoption of AI, 74% of online adults say they are more likely to visit a search engine rather than relying on AI tools. 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
Acknowleding the wide variation in digital behaviours and platform preferences across markets, Mahmood noted that brands in Asia-Pacific can no longer rely on a single channel to reach audiences. He urged marketers to move beyond siloed channel tracking, and make the effort to understand their total brand footprint across news, social, search and AI-powered environments.
