AI use is spreading unevenly, with wealthier countries, people with more skills and certain U.S. states more likely to benefit, according to new usage data from Anthropic.

Why it matters: Workers are adopting AI faster than past tech advances — but uneven uptake could widen inequalities.

The big picture: The interactive report breaks down how usage of the Claude chatbot varies by country as well as by state — within the U.S. — identifying which states are using the technology more and for what purposes.

Zoom in: California, Washington, D.C., and Utah show the largest usage relative to population, while a number of southern and Plains states are underrepresented.

• People are also using AI for different tasks across states.
• In Hawaii, tourism is a major driver of Claude usage, while in D.C. a lot of people are using the chatbot for job searches and writing tasks.
• Coding is a major task for people in California.
• Higher-skilled workers are benefiting more than entry-level workers, perhaps because they can fill in gaps in Claude's knowledge.

Zoom out: Globally, wealthier countries — including Israel, Singapore and Canada — have greater use per capita, while emerging countries such as India and Nigeria lag in usage.

• In wealthier countries with broad access, Claude is used mainly to augment workers. In lower-income countries with less access, it's used more for automation.
• However, researchers cautioned it was too early to predict what implications that might have for long-term job displacement.

Between the lines: Anthropic warns AI could echo past tech booms by boosting growth broadly but concentrating gains among the wealthy.

• "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 — possibly increasing global economic inequality and reversing growth convergence seen in recent decades," Anthropic said in the report.

What they're saying: Anthropic economist Peter McCrory told Axios that the goal of the research is to equip policymakers, researchers and the broader public with enough data "so that the benefits of AI are broadly felt."

• "What we really hope with this data is to help people understand [and] anticipate how AI at the frontier is changing the nature of work," McCrory said.
• Anthropic is making the data openly available for other researchers and policymakers.
• "This is one way we live that value of transparency," Anthropic external affairs head Sarah Heck told Axios.

The fine print: The company collected a random sample of about 1 million conversations from early August 2025.

• It then used a tool called Clio ("Claude insights and observations"), which tracks Claude usage while preserving user privacy.
• Anthropic also mapped conversations to a Labor Department taxonomy of occupations and tasks to infer job usage.
• Geographic data was inferred by IP address.

What's next: In addition to making this round of data broadly available, Anthropic said it's committed to future research to study how usage changes as AI adoption grows.

• "The AI usage index introduced in the report will be a very useful framework for understanding how this diffuses throughout the economy," McCrory said. "I'm very excited to track that over time."

Women are now using ChatGPT slightly more than men, according to an economic report OpenAI released today.

Why it matters: Closing the gender gap helps ensure women aren't left behind as AI reshapes work and life.

In the first few weeks after ChatGPT's release, OpenAI estimated that as many as 80% of users were male, according to the report.

• More recent data from June found slightly more usage among those with traditionally female names.
• OpenAI estimates its gender mix by analyzing user names as typically male, female or uncertain, which can indicate broad trends but isn't a scientifically accurate metric for assessing usage by gender.
• The key to gender balance has been expanding usage beyond early adopters, OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji told Axios. "There's been so much excitement about ChatGPT and how people can use it to do really practical things," he said.

By the numbers: OpenAI's economic report draws on a sampling of 1.5 million conversations from ChatGPT's roughly 700 million weekly users.

• 80% of usage fell into three categories: practical guidance, information search and writing help.
• Coding and other specialized uses were far less common.
• Using ChatGPT as a companion or virtual therapist accounted for less than 2% of usage, per the study.

The fine print: OpenAI studied a sampling of messages from logged-in users over 18, excluding those who specifically opted out, as well as those who requested their data not be used to train new models.

• The company relied on AI to categorize the content of messages, but researchers did not have access to individual chats.

After more than $90 billion in investment was announced in Pennsylvania's energy and tech sectors earlier this summer, the Keystone State is set for more.

Why it matters: Pittsburgh is positioning itself as a key hub in the rapidly growing AI industry in hopes to keep growing as a tech hub.

Driving the news: BNY CEO Robin Vince announced a $10 million agreement to create the BNY AI Lab on Carnegie Mellon University's campus during a discussion at the second annual AI Horizons Summit, held on AI Avenue at Bakery Square.

What they're saying: "The revolution that is coming with AI ... this is the next chapter of growth in our commonwealth," said Gov. Josh Shapiro.

• Shapiro announced last week that he is expanding AI access to all qualifying state employees after a pilot program showed workers saved 95 minutes a day by using ChatGPT to help provide government services.

By the numbers: Vince said more than 100 company employees are working on AI advancement for the bank.

State of play: Hundreds attended the AI Horizons event last Thursday where industry folk, investors and startup heads mingled and looked to make deals in the fast-growing AI economy.

Keep reading.

• Penske Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone and the Hollywood Reporter, is suing Google, alleging the tech giant is illegally using Penske's journalism to power AI summaries, thereby reducing traffic to Penske's websites. (Axios)
• Google's Gemini app has risen to the top of Apple's App Store charts amid the popularity of its Nano Banana image generator. (9to5 Google)
• Elon Musk's xAI is laying off 500 data annotators, as it looks to increasingly rely on workers with specialized knowledge to help train Grok. (Business Insider)

It wasn't the playoff debut that Valkyries fans were hoping for yesterday, but it was nice to see Google use its home page to highlight the logos of various WNBA teams.