AI adoption in Germany climbs sharply, survey finds

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications have become part of normal life for many in Germany, three years after the introduction of OpenAI's ChatGPT language model, the results of a survey showed on Wednesday.

In a representative Forsa survey commissioned by the TÜV Association, 65% of the 1,005 respondents said they use AI, up from 53% a little over a year ago. In October 2023, only 37% said they were AI users.

Some 45% of those surveyed said they use AI several times a week, and 12% use it daily. The figure is even higher among younger people aged between 16 and 29, 55% of which say they use generative AI - which can create text, images, music or videos itself - at least several times a week.

Among AI tools, ChatGPT continues to dominate the German market and 85% of respondents said they have already used OpenAI's chatbot.

However, the survey showed that the competition is catching up. Google's Gemini tool is used by 33% of respondents, and Microsoft's Copilot by 26%. Fourth in the ranking is the Cologne-based start-up DeepL, which originally specialized in translation software but now also offers AI language models.

Some 72% said they used AI to search for information, up from 48% a year ago. The use of AI for creating and improving texts meanwhile declined slightly from 50% to 43%.