Utah is the top state for per-capita AI use, data shows

By the numbers: Utah's usage of Claude, Anthropic's AI platform, is 3.78 times higher than its share of the U.S. working-age population, the report found.

• That's far ahead of the next highest state — California, at 2.13 — and narrowly behind only Wsahington, D.C., at 3.82.
• New York (1.58) and Virginia (1.57) filled out the top five.

Zoom in: Utah's most distinctive topic discussed with Claude is AI itself, with statewide queries to "help develop, debug, and implement machine learning and AI systems" being asked 1.4 times as frequently as the national average, per the report.

• Utahns also use AI at an above-average rate for "technical assistance and computational support for scientific research projects."
• Data from the University of Maryland show a growing demand for AI skills in Utah workplaces.

The intrigue: Salt Lake also leads the nation for AI use in romance.

Zoom out: Anthropic global data shows workers adopting AI faster than past tech advances — but uneven adoption threatens to worsen existing inequalities, with wealthier countries using it more than poorer countries, Axios' Ina Fried reports.

What they're saying: ""If the productivity gains are larger for high-adoption economies, current usage patterns suggest that the benefits of AI may concentrate in already-rich regions," Anthropic said in the report.