54.8% of people aged 16 to 74 have used generative artificial intelligence tools in the last three months, which represents an increase of 16.9 percentage points compared with 2025, according to the Survey on Equipment and the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Households 2026, released this Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
The study also notes progress in e-commerce: 65.7% of the population in that age range made purchases online, 6.1 percentage points more than a year earlier. At the same time, the percentage of people with basic or advanced digital skills stood at 70.9%, following an increase of 4.4 points.
The use of generative AI tools was concentrated among the younger groups and decreased as the age group increased. It reached 83.3% among young people aged 16 to 24 and 76.3% among those aged 25 to 34, compared with 36% of the 55 to 64 group and 19.5% of people aged 65 to 74.
Depending on the purpose, 48.7% of the population aged 16 to 74 used these solutions for private purposes, 27.6% for work-related reasons, and 22.7% in the area of formal education. Educational use was especially intense among young people aged 16 to 24, at 64.4%, while professional use reached its peak in the 25 to 34 segment, at 45%.
By sex, 55.3% of men used generative AI, compared with 54.2% of women, so the gap narrowed to 1.1 percentage points, down from the four points recorded in 2025. Women used these tools more for formal education, while men had higher percentages in private uses and those related to work.
Among those who had not used generative AI in the three months prior to the interview, the main reasons were not knowing that it existed, mentioned by 56.9%; not knowing how to use it, indicated by 18%; and concern about privacy, security, or data protection, stated by 8.5%.
93.4% connect to the Internet every day
97.6% of the population aged 16 to 74 accessed the Internet in the three months prior to the survey, 1.3 points more than in 2025. Daily use reached 93.4%, after an increase of nine tenths.
Women showed slightly higher rates than men in recent Internet use, with a half-point difference; in daily connection, with 1.1 points more, and in online shopping, with a 1.3-point advantage.
The most common activities were those linked to communication, carried out by 97.4% of the population in that age range; entertainment, with 92.4%, and the search for information, excluding that related to health, with 85.9%. In addition, 81.5% used online banking services.
As for digital skills, 71.9% of men and 70.1% of women had basic or advanced skills. The gap between them was reduced to 1.8 points, compared with 3.2 points from the previous exercise.
98% of households have Internet access
98% of households with at least one resident aged 16 to 74 had access to Internet via fixed or mobile broadband, compared with 97.4% in 2025. Among connected homes, 89.9% had fixed broadband and 10.1% accessed exclusively through mobile connection.
The mobile phone was present in 99.4% of households, the same percentage as the previous year, while the presence of landline phone fell by five points, to 44.4%. On the other hand, 84.5% of households had some type of computer, including tablets, seven tenths more than in the previous measurement.
Likewise, 54.8% of people aged 16 to 74 used home automation devices or services, compared with 43.4% in 2024, the last year in which this characteristic had been analyzed.
68% of children aged 10 to 15 have a mobile phone
Among children aged six to 15, 88.9% used a computer and 89.6% connected to the Internet, while 45.9% had a mobile phone.
Ownership of this device varied notably by age: from 1.8% among six-year-old children to 20% among ten-year-olds and 95.6% among 15-year-olds.
In the group aged 10 to 15, 68% had a mobile phone, a proportion similar to 67.9% in 2025. The largest increase was observed among children under 15, with 1.7 points more, while those aged 12 were the only group that experienced a decrease, of 1.1 points.
The survey results are definitive and were obtained between April 6 and July 16, 2026 through telephone interviews and Internet questionnaires, based on a theoretical sample of 26,858 households.