China: within a year the share using generative AI rose from 18% to 43% of residents
December 2024: 17.7%; December 2025: 42.8% of all residents, children included, asked about the past six months. A 2.4-fold rise in a year.
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The China Internet Network Information Center surveys residents twice a year on what they use online. In one year the share who used generative AI rose almost two and a half times, to nearly half of all residents. This is the tool today's pupils leave school with.
Bars: share of all residents of mainland China who used generative AI in the past six months.
- China: used generative AI in six months % of all residents
2024: 17.7; 2025: 42.8
CNNIC: Statistical Report on Internet Development in China (57th, 2026)
CNNIC, 57th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China: a share of the whole population, not only of internet users; a telephone survey, self-reported.
In the EU in 2025 between 18% and 48% of people aged 16–74 used generative AI in three months — a different age and a different window, not directly comparable. The survey does not say what for or how often.
A question for this picture
And school knowledge? China's place in the test of 15-year-olds depended on which provinces sat it.