It turns out that people in much of the world outside the West still feel pretty optimistic about the future of AI.

The first results from a global survey conducted by Gallup and Microsoft found that AI adoption varies widely around the world and so do people’s attitudes toward the technology.

On Tuesday, Gallup published results from the first 37 countries in an AI engagement study that will eventually cover 140 countries. The survey looks at how aware people are of AI, how often they use it, their feelings about the tech, the impact they expect it to have, and how much they trust it.

The findings arrive amid a growing debate over whether the AI industry is moving too fast. Executives at major AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have already called for the industry to slow the pace at which it develops more capable frontier models. These calls follow a recent wave of warnings from researchers inside AI companies about the risks of unfettered AI development, including a non-zero chance that it could lead to human extinction.

Despite these dire warnings, the actual use of AI varies significantly depending on where people live.

Across the 37 countries surveyed, a median of 81% of adults were aware of AI, but only 43% had actually used it.

Singapore led the group in both awareness and adoption, with 96% of adults being aware of AI, 79% having used it, and 46% saying they use it daily. At the other end was Malawi, where only 12% of adults were aware of AI, and just 1% used the tech every day.

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