Many years ago, it was my custom to spend a short period every summer in Rome with my maternal grandparents. At eleven years old, you were considered perfectly capable of traveling alone by bus for a long journey, and the greatest discomfort was spending half an hour standing during a four-hour trip. Among my clearest memories is an ordinary evening at dinner, the only meal we shared together, while the news was broadcasting a report on the water crisis in Sicily. It was a report that often appeared on the news. Growing up, I realized it was actually too infrequent given the importance of the topic. But that is another story. Back to us, the reporter was interviewing a middle-aged woman asking her: “Ma’am, what is most needed today?” The reference was clear: a region without drinking water, without water for crops, for cleaning, for cooking, and so on.
I never heard the answer of the interviewed lady because my grandfather immediately intervened saying: “Intelligence.” From there, a conversation started that made me lose track of the rest of the interview. His comment was not about the Sicilian crisis but about the brain drain in politics at the time. The word “Intelligence” today is a term that has undergone strong inflation. It is much more frequently used than in the past and is quickly associated with a brand-new context: AI. A few days ago, I wondered how the use of AI is positioned globally and, more specifically, how many people are using it. The answer is:
“In 2025, artificial intelligence has reached unprecedented widespread adoption, establishing itself as the fastest adopted technology in human history.“
According to a series of data gathered from the web covering a twelve-month period, which for completeness ends at the close of 2025, a rather clear picture emerges. Here are the main data on AI adoption according to global usage statistics.
- Individual users: It is estimated that approximately 1.2 billion people regularly use AI worldwide. In the United States alone, active users number around 133 million.
- Business Adoption: Adoption has become widespread in the business world. Approximately 72-88% of global companies report using AI in at least one business function.
- Professional Sector: Usage is strongly influenced by income and education. 75% of employed adults use AI, a percentage that rises to 85% among college students. High-income professionals (over $100,000) show regular usage rates exceeding 72%.
The the world panorama
Italy shows accelerated growth during 2025:
- Online population: Approximately 13 million Italians (28% of internet users) actively use AI-based applications.
- Infrastructure: The country is positioned as a strategic hub in Europe thanks to advanced computing infrastructure such as the Leonardo supercomputer at Cineca.
Geographic and demographic positioning
- Leading the way in adoption: India leads the global rankings for enterprise adoption (59%), followed by the United Arab Emirates (58%) and Singapore (53%).
- Digital divide: Despite growth, a significant imbalance persists: while enterprise adoption exceeds 40% in Nordic countries (Denmark 42%), in other European countries like Romania it hovers below 6%.
- Perception: Optimism toward AI is highest in Asia (China 83%, Indonesia 80%), while it remains more cautious in North America and Western Europe (USA 39%, Canada 40%), despite growing compared to previous years.
This is why we can talk about scalability. The word “scalable” describes something that can grow without losing efficiency. It’s a term used primarily in technology, but also applies to processes, organizations, and operating models.
Let’s look at a simple example. A system is scalable when it can handle more users, more data, more operations, more complexity, all without slowing down, breaking, or having to be redesigned from scratch. In other words, scalable = “capable of growing well.”
It fits perfectly into any context where a system can be deployed. A company is also a system, but a company’s product is the one most frequently associated with the word scalable. Software is scalable, a complex system is scalable, and even a plant can be scalable. The intrinsic meaning of the word involves referring to something that can grow organically with its creator and the environment in which it spreads. AI has fully embodied this concept, apparently “faster” than any other technology that has ever spread across the planet.
Appetite comes with eating, so I asked myself another question and sought answers:
“How will the diffusion, and therefore the scalability, of AI change around the world over the next three years? And how will the market and the world of work change?”
The answer comes precisely from an AI query that charts a clear and structured path.
2026 – 2028 The three-year period of change
Over the next three years (2026-2028), the diffusion of AI will move from a phase of “experimentation” to one of deep structural integration. It will no longer be just an external tool (chatbots), but the “invisible engine” of every business process.
- Evolution of Diffusion (2026-2028)
From Generative AI to AI Agents: By 2026, we will witness the rise of “Agents,” systems capable of autonomously planning and executing complex workflows (calling APIs, moving data, compiling reports) rather than simply writing text.
Economic Growth: AI is expected to contribute to global GDP growth of 7% annually and will boost the Italian market to a value of approximately €2.5 billion by 2027.
Pervasiveness: By the end of 2026, AI will impact or reshape approximately 89% of jobs in advanced economies.
- Changes in the Labor Market
The labor market will experience a “workforce transformation” rather than a simple technological upgrade:
Replacement vs. Creation: Automation is estimated to eliminate approximately 92 million jobs by 2030, but will simultaneously create 78-97 million new ones by 2027-2028.
Risk for White-Collar Workers: Unlike in past revolutions, highly educated workers with middle-incomes (up to $80,000) are the most exposed to task automation.
Flattening Hierarchies: Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to eliminate more than half of middle management positions by automating reporting and performance monitoring tasks.
- Emerging Professions and Skills in Demand
By 2026-2028, demand will shift to roles that are still niche today:
AI Architect & Ethics Manager: To design and oversee the ethical governance of systems.
AI Integration Specialist: Positions capable of connecting AI to existing business processes.
Human-touch jobs: In a world saturated with AI content, the value of professions related to empathy, pure creativity, and the management of complex and unstructured contexts will grow. And here, it’s appropriate to ask ourselves: what will make us indispensable in a world that leverages a new intelligence?
- The Risk of the Digital Divide
AI will act as an amplifier of differences: companies and workers that fail to reach the pinnacle of adoption by the end of 2026 risk being irreversibly cut off from the market. The speed at which the required skills are evolving is estimated to be 66% faster than for roles not exposed to AI.
The Risk of the Digital Divide—or AI Divide—in 2025 is no longer just about access to the internet or computers. Today, the real divide is the ability to access, understand, and manage artificial intelligence technologies. It’s no longer a matter of knowing how to use a tool, but of understanding how it works, what logic it incorporates, what decisions it automates, and what consequences it produces. Faced with any risk, it seems humanity is willing to pay the price just to have an intelligence that can do the “hard work for us.”
In short, my grandfather was right: “We really needed intelligence.”
Thank you for your time.
L.C.
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