Education Brief
Jun 26, 2026 - Education Brief
College students are AI power users
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America's college towns are hot spots of AI usage, according to a new Microsoft report.
The big picture: Every county in the top 15 for AI adoption is home to a college or university.
- Williamsburg, Virginia, tops the list, with nearly 75% of working-age people using AI as of the first quarter of this year.
Zoom in: El Paso County — home to UCCS, Colorado College, Pikes Peak State College and the Air Force Academy — has a roughly 34% AI user share.
- That's the seventh-highest share among all Colorado counties and above both the state average (32%) and national level (31%).
Reality check: While college-aged people are the heaviest users of AI, they're also among its loudest critics, Microsoft president Brad Smith previously told Axios.