Generative AI's Unprecedented Adoption Cycle

Forbes

2 days ago

Generative AI catapulted onto the global stage and is utilized by millions of users.
For decades, I have studied the process of technological adoption over time. To understand these adoption cycles from a historical perspective, consider the telephone. Although the first telephone line was established in 1876, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that most American households had a phone. Televisions followed a faster path—mass adoption took about 15 years, with significant growth occurring between 1945 and 1960. Smartphones, however, were adopted even more rapidly. In 2007, only 6% of the U.S. population owned a smartphone, according to Comscore. By 2011, smartphones accounted for more than 50% of all mobile phone sales.
However, mass adoption occurred in 2012-2013, when smartphones had become the norm, according to Quora users. It has been said that smartphones reached 40% market saturation in just two and a half years, making them one of the fastest adopted consumer technologies.
Few technologies have moved as swiftly from the margins to the mainstream as generative AI. Just two and a half years ago, OpenAI's ChatGPT burst onto the scene, triggering a seismic shift that catapulted generative AI onto the global stage and made it an everyday companion for hundreds of millions of users. It is no understatement to say that we are witnessing one of the fastest adoption cycles in tech history—a pace reminiscent of the early days of the personal computer revolution.
Yet, despite all the extraordinary advances since 2023, the real story lies ahead. The market for generative AI is ripe for unprecedented growth. Recent projections place its global value at a staggering $356 billion by 2030—a leap of 10x from where we are today. This scale of expansion is poised to reshape the broader tech landscape fundamentally.
A Golden Era Driven By Investment and Innovation
What makes this growth possible? For starters, leading technology giants—Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Baidu, Tencent—are pouring billions of dollars into the generative AI ecosystem. Their investments have triggered a wave of innovation and attracted intense enthusiasm from venture capital, creating fertile ground for rapid technological evolution. Additionally, Nvidia, AMD, and many other semiconductor companies have accelerated their efforts to power generative AI and help build the necessary infrastructure to support this phenomenal growth.
According to recent industry research, the generative AI market has already expanded 554% in the past four years, reaching $36 billion in 2024. But the momentum is just getting started. Insights from Statista and other market analysts point to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47% through the next five years—tremendous by any measure in the tech sector.
Market Size and Adoption: A Global Phenomenon
Let's put these figures into perspective:
Beyond revenue, user adoption is surging. In 2024, 315 million people were actively using generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Character.ai, Gemini, Claude.ai, DeepSeek, Midjourney, and CapCut. With a projected 65 million new users joining each year, total adoption could reach 730 million by 2030. (I think that number is too low and could be closer to 1 billion users by then.) Generative AI's expanding role in the tech world is only starting.
What separates generative AI from past innovations is not just its scale, but its increasing share within the broader AI industry. Two years ago, generative AI accounted for less than 10% of the global AI revenue. By 2024, its share nearly doubled to 20%. By 2030, it is expected to command 43%—more than double today's percentage, representing a fourfold increase in just eight years.
For perspective, few other AI segments can match this kind of trajectory or transformative impact. The vast majority of new value in AI over the next decade, from productivity apps to creative content and new digital assistants, will be driven by generative technologies. One significant difference with AI is that, in the past, radical technologies would almost always first be adopted by business and enterprise markets. However, generative AI became usable by businesses and at the consumer level from the outset.
Generative AI represents a foundational shift, comparable to the rise of the internet or the mobile phone revolution. With historic levels of investment, an expanding user base, and a market poised to multiply by an order of magnitude, generative AI stands at the heart of the next decade's most significant opportunities for businesses and society.
Disclosure: Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD subscribe to Creative Strategies research reports along with many other high tech companies around the world.