How Will Generative AI App Adoption Compare to Internet App Adoption?

Many observers expect generative artificial intelligence applications to gain substantial use even faster than internet apps. That might imply very rapid adoption indeed. But it also is possible that adoption at scale might take longer than some expect.

By some estimates, it might have taken about five years for 10 percent of U.S. businesses to begin using internet apps to any significant degree, and that includes email. 

Year	Estimated % of U.S. Businesses Using Internet Apps
1995	1%
2000	10%
2005	30%
2010	50%
2015	70%
2020	85%
2023	90% (est.)

In fact, email might be the most-common internet use case embraced by most businesses. 

Year	% of U.S. Businesses Using Email
1980	1%
1990	10%
1995	30%
2000	60%
2005	80%
2010	95%
2020	99%

U.S. business use of web sites lagged email adoption by roughly five years. 

Year	% of U.S. Businesses Using Websites
1990	1%
1995	5%
2000	20%
2005	50%
2010	80%
2015	95%
2020	99%

But if AI apps and services are likely to be adopted faster than internet services were between 1996 and 2005, especially for consumer applications, there are some logical reasons. 

For starters, the whole internet infrastructure, including broadband access, multimedia, browser and so forth, had to be created. AI, on the other hand, as a “software” development, will be applied to existing applications, processes and use cases. 

That noted, we are likely looking at five to seven years before use of consumer-facing AI apps and usage is common. 

In the period from 1996 to 2005, for example, as the internet was popularized, a large number of new behaviors developed. Prior to 1996, for example, people were unlikely to be using:

• Web Browsers and Email

• Search Engines (Google was not founded until 1998)

• E-commerce

• Social Networking

• Instant Messaging

• File Sharing

• Blogging and user-generated content

Likewise, businesses were unlikely to use or have:

• Web sites

• E-commerce (PayPal was not founded until 1998

• Digital Marketing (Google AdWords was not introduced until 2000)

• Customer Relationship Management (Salesforce.com was founded in 1999)

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

• IP-based Communication and Collaboration (Skype was founded in 2003)

• Supply Chain Management

• Online Recruiting  (Job boards such as Monster.com appeared in 1999)

source: eMarketer 

If we look at consumer internet app adoption, uptake was quite rapid, suggesting that AI adoption could be quite rapid indeed. If consumers widely adopted internet apps about four years after initial introduction, then AI could well be widely used by consumers within two years. 

Company	Founded	Widespread Use
eBay	1995	1998
Amazon	1995	1999
Craigslist	1995	2000
Google	1998	2001
PayPal	1998	2002
Wikipedia	2001	2004
Facebook	2004	2007
YouTube	2005	2007
Twitter	2006	2009