{ "@context": { "@vocab": "http://schema.org/", "ai": "https://schema.org/ArtificialIntelligence", "dct": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/", "xsd": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" }, "@type": "Report", "name": "AI Index Report 2026", "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)", "url": "https://hai.stanford.edu" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Stanford University", "url": "https://www.stanford.edu" }, "datePublished": "2026-04", "description": "The AI Index Report 2026 provides a comprehensive, independently sourced picture of AI's trajectory, covering research, technical performance, responsible AI, economy, science, medicine, education, policy, governance, and public opinion.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Article", "name": "Introduction", "text": "AI continues to advance rapidly, outpacing governance, evaluation, education, and data infrastructure.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "DefinedTermSet", "name": "Defined Terms in Introduction", "description": "Key terms such as AI, governance, evaluation, education, data infrastructure.", "hasDefinedTerm": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Artificial Intelligence", "description": "Systems capable of performing tasks that normally require human intelligence." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Governance", "description": "Frameworks and policies to manage AI development and deployment." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Evaluation", "description": "Methods and benchmarks to assess AI capabilities and impacts." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Education", "description": "Systems and policies for teaching AI skills and literacy." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Data Infrastructure", "description": "Systems for collecting and analyzing AI impact data." } ] }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the AI Index Report?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "An independent initiative at Stanford HAI to track AI's impact globally with reliable data." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the main challenge in AI development?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The gap between AI's rapid capability growth and slower adaptation of governance, evaluation, and education systems." } } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Top Takeaways", "text": "Key insights on AI's rapid adoption, technical progress, economic impact, and governance challenges.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to Understand AI's Current Landscape", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Recognize AI's rapid adoption", "text": "Generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than PC or internet." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Note technical convergence", "text": "Top AI models are converging in performance, shifting competition to cost and reliability." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Understand economic impact", "text": "AI investment and consumer value are growing rapidly, but labor market effects are uneven." } ] }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the status of AI capability growth?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI capability is accelerating, with models meeting or exceeding human baselines on complex tasks." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI adoption distributed globally?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Adoption varies by country, correlating with GDP per capita, with some outliers like Singapore and UAE." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the labor market effects of AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Productivity gains appear in structured tasks; younger workers face employment declines." } } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Research and Development", "text": "AI model development is concentrated in industry, with growing compute and infrastructure demands.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "DefinedTermSet", "name": "Key Terms in Research and Development", "hasDefinedTerm": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Notable AI Models", "description": "AI models recognized for state-of-the-art advancements or historical significance." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Compute Capacity", "description": "The total computational power available for AI training and inference." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Data Center", "description": "Facilities housing AI compute infrastructure." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Open-Source AI Software", "description": "AI development projects publicly available for use and collaboration." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "AI Publications", "description": "Research papers and articles on AI topics." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "AI Patents", "description": "Legal protections for AI-related inventions." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "AI Talent", "description": "Researchers and developers working in AI." } ] }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Who produces most notable AI models?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Industry produces over 90% of notable AI models, with the US and China leading." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the trend in AI compute capacity?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Global AI compute capacity grew 3.3x per year since 2022, reaching 17.1 million H100-equivalents." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the environmental impacts of AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI training emissions and data center power use are increasing significantly." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to Track AI Model Development", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Collect data on notable AI models", "text": "Use curated datasets like Epoch AI to identify significant models." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Analyze compute and infrastructure", "text": "Track hardware adoption, compute capacity, and data center power." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Monitor open-source AI development", "text": "Use platforms like GitHub and Hugging Face to analyze project growth." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 4, "name": "Assess research output", "text": "Analyze AI publications and patents for trends and geographic distribution." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 5, "name": "Evaluate AI talent distribution", "text": "Use datasets like Zeki to map AI researchers and inventors." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Technical Performance", "text": "AI models are rapidly improving, converging in performance, but benchmarks face reliability challenges.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "DefinedTermSet", "name": "Key Terms in Technical Performance", "hasDefinedTerm": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Benchmark Saturation", "description": "When models reach scores so high that tests can no longer distinguish between them." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Closed-Weight Models", "description": "AI models with proprietary weights not publicly released." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Open-Weight Models", "description": "AI models with publicly available weights." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Arena Leaderboard", "description": "A platform for human-voted pairwise comparisons of AI model outputs." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "MMLU", "description": "Massive Multitask Language Understanding benchmark." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "RAG", "description": "Retrieval-Augmented Generation." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "BFCL", "description": "Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard." } ] }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Are AI models surpassing human performance?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, on many benchmarks including MMLU, ImageNet, and PhD-level science questions." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the status of open vs closed weight models?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Closed-weight models currently lead but open-weight models are more competitive than before." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How reliable are current AI benchmarks?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Benchmarks face issues like contamination, invalid questions, and adaptation to platforms." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to evaluate AI language understanding", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Use MMLU-Pro for broad knowledge", "text": "Evaluate models on 12,000+ multiple-choice questions with 10 options." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Use Arena Leaderboard for generation quality", "text": "Collect human preference votes on model outputs." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Test specialized tasks", "text": "Evaluate retrieval-augmented generation, function calling, and embeddings." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Economy", "text": "AI investment, adoption, and labor market impacts are growing rapidly but unevenly distributed.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How much did global AI investment grow in 2025?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Global corporate AI investment more than doubled, with private investment growing 127.5%." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which countries lead in AI investment?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The United States leads by a wide margin, followed by China and the UK." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the consumer value of generative AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Estimated U.S. consumer surplus reached $172 billion annually by early 2026." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI adoption spreading in organizations?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Organizational AI adoption rose to 88%, with generative AI used in 70% of business functions." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are AI's labor market effects?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Employment declines are concentrated among youngest workers in AI-exposed roles." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to analyze AI investment and labor trends", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Track corporate and private AI investment", "text": "Use datasets like Quid and McKinsey surveys." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Analyze organizational AI adoption", "text": "Survey business functions and deployment stages." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Monitor labor market demand and impact", "text": "Use job postings, hiring data, and employment trends." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Medicine", "text": "AI is advancing in molecular biology and clinical care, but clinical evidence and governance lag behind.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the key advances in molecular biology AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Smaller protein language models outperform larger ones; virtual cell models predict cellular responses." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI applied in clinical settings?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI tools reduce clinician documentation time and improve sepsis prediction, but clinical trials remain limited." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the status of AI medical device authorization?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "FDA authorized 258 AI medical devices in 2025, mostly without new clinical trials." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How are patients engaging with AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI-generated health summaries appear in 84%-92% of health-related searches; patient perspectives vary." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are ethical considerations in medical AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Ethics discussion is growing but narrow, with governance dominating over biosecurity and global health equity." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to evaluate AI in medicine", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Track molecular biology AI research and models", "text": "Analyze publications, datasets, and foundation models." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Assess clinical AI applications and trials", "text": "Review imaging models, prospective trials, and FDA authorizations." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Understand patient engagement and ethics", "text": "Survey AI-generated health information use and ethical discourse." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Education", "text": "AI education demand is growing but systems lag; AI adoption varies across countries and education levels.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the status of postsecondary AI education?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI software-related degrees are growing, especially at the master’s level; hardware-related degrees remain flat." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI education progressing at K-12 levels?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Four out of five U.S. high school and college students use AI for schoolwork; policies lag behind." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the global trends in AI and CS education?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Most countries offer CS education; AI education is emerging with mandates in China and UAE." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How are AI skills being acquired?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI literacy skills are growing faster than engineering skills; skill diffusion varies by country." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to track AI education and skills", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Analyze degree completions and enrollment", "text": "Use NCES, OECD, and CRA Taulbee data." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Survey K-12 education access and policies", "text": "Use Code.org data and state/federal policy reviews." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Measure AI skill penetration and diffusion", "text": "Use LinkedIn data on skills, hiring, and talent concentration." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Policy and Governance", "text": "AI policy is expanding globally with focus on sovereignty, regulation, and public investment.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How are national AI strategies evolving?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "More countries, especially emerging economies, are adopting formal AI strategies." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is AI sovereignty?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "A state's capacity to control AI infrastructure, data, models, applications, and talent." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI legislation developing globally?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI-related laws are increasing, with the US leading in volume; state-level US laws are active amid federal deregulation." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the status of public AI investment?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "US public AI investment reached $20.4 billion (2013-24); Europe committed $3.7 billion, with UK leading." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to analyze AI policy and governance", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Track national AI strategies", "text": "Use Oxford Insights data to monitor adoption and geographic spread." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Analyze legislative activity", "text": "Use Digital Policy Alert and US state legislative databases." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Assess public AI investment", "text": "Use US FPDS, USAspending, and European TED data." } ] } ] }, { "@type": "Article", "name": "Public Opinion", "text": "Public optimism and nervousness about AI coexist globally; trust in institutions varies widely.", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the global sentiment toward AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Optimism about AI benefits rose to 59% in 2025; nervousness also increased to 52%." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do perceptions of AI's impact on jobs vary?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Experts are more optimistic than the public about AI's positive impact on jobs and economy." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are public views on AI trust and regulation?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Trust in government to regulate AI is low in the US (31%) but higher in Southeast Asia." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How is AI used in the workplace globally?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI use is higher in emerging economies; trust and organizational support vary by region." } }, { "@type": "HowTo", "name": "How to measure public opinion on AI", "step": [ { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 1, "name": "Conduct global surveys", "text": "Use Ipsos AI Monitor and Pew Research Center data." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 2, "name": "Compare expert and public views", "text": "Analyze differences in optimism, trust, and expected impacts." }, { "@type": "HowToStep", "position": 3, "name": "Track workplace AI adoption and trust", "text": "Use University of Melbourne/KPMG Global AI Survey." } ] } ] } ] }