Consumer Edge data shows that adoption of paid AI subscriptions among consumers is growing rapidly across all income and age groups, with the percentage of cardholders paying for at least one AI service roughly doubling over the past year. While higher-income and younger consumers are leading the way, the broader story is one of widening adoption across demographic cohorts. Paid AI subscriptions are no longer a niche product for any single demographic, and there are no signs of the growth rate slowing.
Note: These figures reflect what consumers pay for on their own cards, not total AI usage. Actual adoption is higher once free tiers, employer-provided access, and business spend are counted.
Widening Adoption, Led By High-Income Consumers
A consumer’s propensity to purchase an AI subscription is directly correlated with their income; the higher the income cohort, the more likely they are to pay for enhanced features such as higher usage limits and advanced capabilities offered through a paid subscription. Over the past year, AI penetration has roughly doubled YoY across every income group. Every income tier from under $40K up to $150K sits in a relatively tight band between roughly 2.4% and 3.7% penetration in Q1 2026, with all groups posting steep acceleration since Q1 2025 as the adoption curve turns sharply upward.
The $150K+ tier is the clear outlier: ~5% penetration in Q1 2026 and a noticeably steeper growth trajectory that has pulled away from the pack over the past year. Although the curves look similar across cohorts, the spread between them is widening. The gap between the highest and lowest income groups was just 140 basis points in Q1 2025 and nearly doubled to 260 basis points a year later. The middle tiers, $40-60K, $60-80K, and $80-100K, remain nearly indistinguishable from one another. This point is just another sign that AI is embedding itself across all income brackets as subscription pricing has become more accessible and consumer-facing tools have proliferated well beyond productivity software into everyday use cases.
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
Although adoption curves have similarities across income groups, the spread among these groups is expanding. Every income group has seen its YoY penetration gains compound steadily upward since Q1 2024. Penetration amongst the $150K+ cohort grew the fastest year over year, rising 250 bps to 5% – well ahead of the ~100-200 bps range posted by every other group. The middle tiers remain tightly clustered in their YoY adds.
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
Although adoption curves have similarities across income groups, the spread among these groups is expanding. Every income group has seen its YoY penetration gains compound steadily upward since Q1 2024. Penetration amongst the $150K+ cohort grew the fastest year over year, rising 250 bps to 5% – well ahead of the ~100-200 bps range posted by every other group. The middle tiers remain tightly clustered in their YoY adds.
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
What arises from examining these demographic groups is a story common among technological advances — early adoption tends to centralize around younger consumers with the curiosity to experience the latest advancements and consumers with the disposable income necessary to afford them. The YoY deltas depicted below reinforce this dynamic. The 18-24 and 25-34 cohorts are the highest in absolute penetration. The 18-24 group reached nearly 3% adoption in Q1 2026 and the 25-34 cohort was close behind at ~2.5%. These gains are accelerating, not leveling off, suggesting younger consumers may be early in their adoption journey despite already leading the pack. The 35-44 cohort is the notable mover in the middle. Its YoY adds have climbed sharply and are now nearly on par with the 25-34 group, hinting that AI subscriptions are beginning to cross over into older millennials in a meaningful way. The oldest cohorts (55-64 and 65+) are growing too, but their YoY adds remain well below the younger groups and show more modest acceleration, consistent with the pattern seen in most consumer technology adoption cycles where older demographics follow the trail blazed by younger ones, just on a longer lag.
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
Cross-Shop Shows OpenAI Dominant Among Consumers
US consumer credit and debit cards only; does not include business and employer-paid AI spend.
Across every brand we included in our cross-shop analysis, OpenAI is the most common cross-shop destination by a wide margin. Between 31% and 48% of customers of any given AI brand also use OpenAI, reflecting its position as the default starting point for most AI consumers. Cursor users show the highest OpenAI overlap at 47.7%. Anthropic is the clear second destination, particularly for Cursor (40.7%) and Perplexity (25.6%) users, suggesting meaningful overlap among the more technically sophisticated segment of AI consumers.
Only 6% of OpenAI customers also use Anthropic, and similarly, every other brand is also in the low single digits. This underscores just how much larger OpenAI’s user base is relative to the rest of the category. The audio and image-generation tools (Suno, Midjourney, and ElevenLabs) show lower cross-shop rates across the board, consistent with serving more specialized use cases rather than competing head-on with the general-purpose LLM platforms.
Notes: minimum spend filter applied; only select key industries included; only brands whose growth acceleration was greater than their respective subindustries are included.
