The Hidden Divide in Everyday AI Adoption.
Affordability and access gaps reveal who benefits from the AI boom, and who is excluded.
Scaling Rapidly, but Not Evenly
Consumer Edge’s AI Goes Mainstream: The Consumer Spend Boom of 2025 demonstrates how quickly AI has moved into daily life in the United States. In the first half of the year, U.S. consumer spending on AI platforms increased 116% year-over-year and 58% sequentially, with Q2 annualized growth reaching 129%, the strongest pace since early 2024. Nearly 2% of Americans had already paid for an AI service in 2025, evidence of normalization at scale.
Beneath these numbers, however, lies concentration: usage patterns show that the benefits of this growth accrue mostly to wealthier households able to take on new subscriptions.
Adoption is widening in visibility but narrow in depth, reflecting an imbalance between those who gain efficiency and those left behind.
Subscription Models as Barriers
The pricing of leading AI services illustrates how affordability defines participation. ChatGPT Pro revenues expanded 1100% year-over-year in 2025, yet the $20 monthly fee positions it as a tool for professionals and knowledge workers, not for households managing limited budgets.
Developer platforms follow a similar pattern. Codeium expanded 8000% year-over-year and Cursor rose 3000% by embedding inside professional environments, but their monetization strategies remain targeted to enterprise-grade users. As subscription models scale, they extend capability to consumers who can afford recurring costs while locking out those without that flexibility.
The divide is not about exposure, many know these tools exist, but about who can consistently use them in ways that build long-term advantage.
Regional Realities in the Gulf
Surveys from Deloitte and KPMG reveal a parallel tension in the Gulf. Deloitte’s Digital Consumer Trends 2025 found that 58% of UAE and Saudi consumers had experimented with generative AI tools, and 55% of those users engaged weekly or daily. This signals strong awareness but also shows that habitual use is concentrated within a smaller, higher-income segment.
KPMG’s findings that 61% of UAE businesses intend to invest in AI in 2025 reinforce the picture: enterprise adoption is accelerating while household access remains patchier. Consumer sentiment reflects this gap. A 2025 Campaign Middle East study reported that half of UAE consumers believe AI has not met expectations for customer experience, underscoring that access alone does not equal value.
Even in a region investing heavily in infrastructure, consumer-level participation is constrained by cost and perception.
Consequences of a Two-Speed System
AI is no longer an experimental add-on but part of the underlying infrastructure of work and communication. When access divides persist, they define not only who can purchase subscriptions but also who gains structural advantages in productivity and learning.
In the U.S., households able to integrate AI into workflows are already capturing efficiency gains, while others fall behind. In the Gulf, telecom operators such as e& are rolling out AI-powered mobility and service platforms at a national level, yet half of consumers still express dissatisfaction with their direct experience.
This mismatch between top-down investment and bottom-up access creates the conditions for a two-speed economy, where benefits accumulate to early adopters and others remain excluded from the infrastructure of progress.
Bottom Line
AI’s mainstream expansion in 2025 is clear, but the benefits remain uneven.
Verified data from the U.S. and Gulf shows that pricing, adoption habits, and consumer trust determine access, and these factors are already creating divides that shape productivity and opportunity.
Unless pricing models evolve and policy frameworks address inclusion, the gains of AI will remain concentrated, reinforcing inequities rather than reducing them.
