AI Usage Statistics Australia 2026: Every Number Sourced

Somewhere between half and three-quarters of Australians now use AI tools, and the exact figure depends on how a survey defines "use". The most robust 2026 measure, from Roy Morgan's Single Source survey of 14,646 Australians, found 13.6 million people aged 14+ (58%) used an AI tool in an average four weeks in the March quarter 2026, with ChatGPT alone at 10.5 million (45%). Business figures spread even wider: from 12% of employing businesses in the official ABS count for 2024-25 to 72% of small businesses in auDA's 2026 survey.

This page collects the Australian AI usage statistics worth quoting, each linked to its primary source with its sample, method, fieldwork date and definition of "use". It explains why the headline numbers disagree, covers consumers, tools, businesses, search behaviour and trust, and ends with the circulating statistics we could not trace to a primary source. Every figure was checked against its source on 2 November 2026.

Australian AI usage statistics at a glance

The table below is the short version. Each row names the measure exactly, because "58% use AI" and "48.6% have used AI" are answers to different questions, not competing answers to the same one.

How many Australians use AI?

About 13.6 million Australians aged 14 and over use an AI tool in a typical four-week period, according to Roy Morgan. That is 58% of the population in that age group. Other credible surveys put the share between 48.6% and 77%, and the gap is explained mostly by definitions and dates rather than by any survey being wrong.

Roy Morgan: 58% in an average four weeks

Roy Morgan's June 2026 release is the largest sample in this set: 14,646 Australians aged 14+, surveyed continuously from January to March 2026 as part of Roy Morgan Single Source. Its definition is recent, active use: the person used the tool in an average four-week period. A July 2026 follow-up on the same data found AI users split evenly by gender (6.8 million men, 6.7 million women), that 21% of AI users are currently studying, and that AI users have a median personal income of $67,000 against $53,000 for all Australians aged 14+.

ANU and Google: 48.6% have ever deliberately used generative AI

The AI Adoption in Australia report from the Australian National University, produced in partnership with Google, surveyed 3,577 adults through the ANUpoll series between 8 and 19 October 2025, with results weighted to ABS population benchmarks. It asked about deliberate use of generative AI, explicitly excluding "tools or products that may incidentally have Generative AI embedded into it". On that definition, 48.6% of adults had used it. The ANU announcement ran in July 2026, which is why many pages present this as mid-2026 data. The fieldwork was nine months earlier.

ANU also measured how often users engage: among all users, 8.6% use generative AI every day, 18.9% most days, 24.3% a day or two a week and 48.2% less than weekly.

auDA Digital Lives: 61% have used AI for any purpose

The auDA Digital Lives of Australians 2026 report, run by SEC Newgate, surveyed 2,080 adults and 408 small businesses from 27 February to 5 March 2026. It found 61% of consumers had used AI for at least one purpose, up from 56% in 2025. Use for work (regularly or occasionally) jumped from 30% in 2025 to 54% in 2026, and use for personal life rose from 29% to 44%. Few ranking statistics pages cite this report yet, although it repeats the same questions each year, so its trend lines (back to 2023 for some measures) are directly comparable.

Telsyte: 77% of Australians aged 16+

Telsyte's Australian Artificial Intelligence Study 2026, as reported by B&T on 3 June 2026 and IT Brief, estimates 17.4 million Australian AI users, or 77% of the 16+ population, up by more than 6 million in the year to May 2026. Of those, 14.3 million use AI at least monthly and 5.2 million daily. Telsyte is an analyst firm and the full study is a paid report; the public coverage does not state the sample size or how a "user" is defined, so treat this as the upper bound of the range.

Why do Australian AI statistics disagree?

The figures disagree because each survey measures a different thing, in a different population, at a different time. Once those are lined up, the numbers are broadly consistent with fast growth through 2025 and 2026.

1. Definition of use. "Ever used" (ANU, auDA) is a lower bar than "used in the last four weeks" (Roy Morgan), yet ANU also excludes AI embedded in other products, which pushes its number down. Roy Morgan's Gemini figure likewise counts active use only, not the AI built into Google Search.
2. Age base. Roy Morgan counts people aged 14+, Telsyte 16+, ANU and auDA adults 18+. Teenagers use AI at high rates (66% of 14-17 year olds in Roy Morgan's data), so younger bases lift the total.
3. Fieldwork date. ANU's survey ran in October 2025; Roy Morgan's ran January-March 2026; auDA's ran February-March 2026; Telsyte's runs to May 2026. In a market Telsyte says added 6 million users in a year, a six-month gap is material.
4. Panel and method. Online opt-in panels (auDA via PureProfile, ANU via the Online Research Unit) and Roy Morgan's continuous Single Source survey recruit differently, and all are weighted to population benchmarks in different ways.
5. People versus traffic. Statcounter's AI chatbot figures measure referral page views to websites, not how many people use each tool. A tool can have many users and send few clicks.

Practical rule: when you quote one of these numbers, quote its definition with it. "58% of Australians aged 14+ used an AI tool in an average four weeks (Roy Morgan, March quarter 2026)" will survive scrutiny. "58% of Australians use AI" will not.

How many Australians use ChatGPT, and which AI tools are most popular?

ChatGPT is the most used AI tool in Australia on every measure we found. Roy Morgan puts it at 10.5 million users (45% of people aged 14+) in an average four weeks, more than double Google Gemini at 5 million (21%). Telsyte's larger counts put ChatGPT at 13.8 million users.

Sources: Roy Morgan finding 10248, Telsyte via IT Brief, Statcounter AI chatbot market share, Australia. Telsyte's published list also includes Apple Intelligence (3.9 million), Samsung Galaxy AI (3.1 million), Grok (2.5 million) and CapCut (2.4 million).

Two patterns stand out. First, Perplexity does not appear in either published user count, yet it sends 10.80% of AI chatbot referrals to Australian-tracked websites. Referral share reflects how often a tool sends clicks, not how many people use it. Second, Claude users skew professional: Roy Morgan reports 65% of Claude users work full time, with a median personal income of $90,000.

Which age groups use AI most in Australia?

Australians aged 25-34 use AI the most. Roy Morgan found 74% of 25-34 year olds and 72% of 35-49 year olds used an AI tool in an average four weeks, against 68% of 18-24s, 66% of 14-17s, 50% of 50-64s and 31% of people aged 65+. ANU's data shows the same gradient: more than seven in ten adults under 35 had used generative AI, compared with 17.2% of 65-74 year olds and 12.3% of those 75+.

Education and location matter as much as age. ANU found 66.7% of degree holders had used generative AI, compared with 24.5% of people who had not completed Year 12, and 53.2% of capital-city residents compared with 39.5% elsewhere. auDA reports lower use among Australians living with a disability (39%) and those aged 50+ (40%).

How many Australian businesses use AI?

Between 12% and 72% of Australian businesses use AI, and the spread comes almost entirely from who is surveyed and what counts as use. The only official figure, from the ABS, is the lowest: 12% of employing businesses reported using AI in 2024-25.

The ABS figure measures something closer to organisational adoption and runs to June 2025, before the steepest growth in the consumer data. It also shows how uneven adoption is: 37% of large innovation-active businesses used AI, against 6% of micro businesses that were not innovation-active, and the Information, Media and Telecommunications industry reached 38%, up from 8% in 2021-22.

What percentage of small businesses in Australia use AI?

Survey-based estimates for 2026 put small business AI use at roughly 40-72%. The tightest comparable pair is from auDA: 72% of small businesses have used AI for any purpose, but only 40% use it regularly or occasionally for work. NAB's 42% sits close to that "for work" figure. QuickBooks' 69% is higher but comes from a vendor survey of its own market with no published definition of "regular".

Industry differences are large. NAB found Property Services (69%), Finance and Insurance (64%) and Business Services (61%) lead, while Retail (22%) and Transport and Storage (21%) trail. NAB also found 16% of SMEs believe AI will not benefit their business at all.

What do Australian businesses use AI for?

• Analysing and summarising content is the most common use: 86% of small business AI users and 89% of consumer AI users in auDA's survey.
• Creating or refining content, such as emails and reports: 75% of small business AI users (auDA).
• Automation remains rare: only 16% of small businesses use agentic AI for tasks like large email mail-outs and 9% for processes such as payroll (auDA).
• By function, QuickBooks' Australian respondents most often use AI for data processing (38%), administration (36%), marketing (34%), customer service (32%) and bookkeeping (32%).

For tool-by-tool options aimed at local firms, see our guide to the best AI tools for Australian businesses.

AI in search: are AI Overviews and AI Mode available in Australia?

Yes. Google's Search Help page lists Australia among the countries where AI Overviews are available to all users (checked 2 November 2026). AI Overviews reached Australia in Google's October 2024 expansion to more than 100 countries, although that post did not list the countries. Google's own Australian marketer guide says AI Mode began rolling out to Australians from 8 October 2025, and, as of that guide, Google had no firm Australian launch date for ads in AI Overviews or AI Mode. That has since changed: on 28 October 2026 Google announced it is scaling ads in AI Mode to markets including Australia, and Google Ads Help (checked 2 November 2026) lists Australia for ads in both AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Google has not published Australia-specific AI Overviews usage figures. The usage numbers in that guide (over 2 billion monthly AI Overviews users; AI Mode queries 2-3 times longer than traditional searches) are global. For what AI Overviews look like on Australian results pages and how to appear in them, see our Google AI Overviews in Australia guide.

Do Australians use AI instead of Google search?

Not yet for most people, but the share is growing quickly. Telsyte reports that 12% of Australians now identify AI tools as their main way of finding information online, up from 5% a year earlier. Meanwhile Google still sent 87.61% of all search engine referrals in Australia in October 2026, with Bing at 9.4% (Statcounter).

The more important shift is happening inside Google. Telsyte found 81% of Australians are aware of AI-generated summaries in search results, and half say they would often rely on a summary without clicking through to the source. ANU's survey points the same way: searching for facts or information was the most frequent use of generative AI both at work and at home, and 47.1% of users described AI as an "information resource", the most common of six analogies offered.

Do Australians trust AI?

Australians use AI far more than they trust the companies behind it. The clearest numbers:

• Data privacy is the biggest brake. 65.8% of adults agree that concerns about the use of personal data limit their use of generative AI (ANU, October 2025). 57.0% cite a lack of training or skills, and 53.8% worry their critical-thinking skills will decline.
• Low trust in tech companies. Only 35% trust technology companies to use their data responsibly, and 62% feel technology is changing faster than they can keep up (Telsyte, 2026).
• Scepticism about ads in answers. Only 27% are comfortable seeing ads within AI-generated answers, and 52% say sponsored AI answers are less trustworthy than organic ones (Telsyte).
• Support for safeguards and labelling. 69% of consumers would feel more comfortable using AI with stronger regulatory safeguards, up from 61% in 2023 (auDA). 77.3% agree AI-produced documents should be labelled (ANU vignette experiment).
• Political concern. 79.4% are very or somewhat concerned about generative AI in politics (ANU).
• Job fears are rising. 63% of consumers agree AI will replace human workers and lead to unemployment, up from 55% in 2023 (auDA).
• A training gap. In the KPMG and University of Melbourne trust study (fieldwork November 2024 to January 2025), only 24% of Australians had undertaken AI-related training, against 39% globally.

Australian AI statistics we could not verify

These figures circulate on Australian blogs and news sites. We traced each one on 2 November 2026 and could not confirm it, as worded, from a primary source. We have left them out of the body of this page.

What do these statistics mean for Australian marketers?

The data supports three practical conclusions, without needing any forecast:

1. Your customers already ask AI about your category. With ChatGPT at 10.5 million four-week users and information-seeking the top use case, assume buyers ask AI tools for recommendations before they search.
2. Google's AI Overviews are the bigger near-term surface. Google still sends most search referrals, and half of Australians say they would often rely on an AI summary without clicking through. Winning a citation in the summary matters as much as the blue link beneath it.
3. Measure your own share, not national averages. National adoption figures cannot tell you whether AI tools mention your brand. Check AI referrals in your own analytics (our guide to tracking AI referral traffic in GA4 shows how), and run the prompts your customers would ask.

To see how AI engines answer prompts in your category, you can track them in AI Rank Lab's AI visibility tracking. For the strategic picture rather than the numbers, read our analysis of AI SEO trends in Australia; for a comparable sourced dataset from another market, see AI search optimisation in India.

Methodology and limitations of this page

We opened every source listed here on 2 November 2026 and took methodology details from the primary documents themselves where they were public: the ANU report PDF (survey section 2.1), the auDA report's methodology appendix, and NAB's April 2026 PDF. Where a figure is only available through media coverage of a paid report (Telsyte), we say so. We did not use AI Rank Lab's own product data, because it has no Australia-specific breakdown.

Several sources have commercial interests worth noting: the ANU report was produced in partnership with Google; the QuickBooks report is published by Intuit, which sells software to the businesses it surveyed; Roy Morgan and Telsyte are commercial research firms; and AI Rank Lab sells AI search visibility software. None of the surveys here is directly comparable with another, so treat differences between them as differences in method first.

If you publish a newer primary figure for Australia, or spot an error, tell us and we will update this page with the date of the change. Want to know whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews mention your business? Start tracking your AI visibility with AI Rank Lab.