TÜİK: AI usage in Turkey nearly doubled in a single year

Turkey's statistical institute, TÜİK, published its AI Statistics, 2026 bulletin on October 3, 2026, showing that generative AI use nearly doubled in a single year. Among individuals aged 16-74, the share using generative AI rose from 19.2% in 2025 to 37.6% in 2026.

The jump isn't limited to individuals. According to TÜİK's enterprise ICT usage survey, the share of enterprises reporting use of at least one AI technology reached 14% in 2026.

Who's using it, and for what?

Usage is highest among the youngest age group (16-24), and by education level, university graduates lead at 62.7%. Individual usage breaks down as:

• Everyday/personal purposes: 86.4%
• Professional purposes: 37.3%
• Educational purposes: 32.6%

On the enterprise side, adoption scales with company size: 12.8% among enterprises with 10-49 employees, 17.0% among those with 50-249, and 37.1% among those with 250 or more. Larger firms are adopting AI faster.

Which sector leads?

The activity with the highest AI adoption among enterprises is telecommunications, programming and IT services, at 63.7%, followed by publishing, broadcasting and content production at 57.1%, and repair of computers and communication equipment at 32.4%. By purpose, enterprises most commonly use AI for marketing or sales (51.0%).

Vinci Studio's take

The numbers point to an interesting gap: individual adoption is spreading fast across society, while on the business side large enterprises are still well ahead of small and medium ones. The fact that enterprises lean on AI mainly for marketing and sales lines up with what we see at the SME level too — and it's still a largely untapped opportunity for smaller businesses.

Sources: Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), "AI Statistics, 2026" bulletin (veriportali.tuik.gov.tr), and news coverage citing TÜİK data (Sabah, Haberler.com, Milliyet, Karar) — all dated October 3, 2026.