(Nov 5): UK consumers are spending over £1 billion (US$1.4 billion) a year on artificial intelligence subscriptions, with Anthropic eating into OpenAI’s lead, research showed on Thursday.
As of July, more than 5% of adults in Britain now pay for their own AI subscription — about double the proportion a year earlier, according to the research by academics at three universities. They based their study on analysis of 14 million UK bank and card accounts.
While a majority of consumer spending is going to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the paper shows that Anthropic’s Claude is rapidly catching up, with its market share quadrupling between December 2025 and July 2026. That’s partly because Claude users are much likelier to adopt the provider’s pricier plans.
As OpenAI and Anthropic prepare for blockbuster IPOs, the analysis highlights how the technology’s rapid rise in just a few years extends beyond the commercial sector in Britain. While some businesses have struggled to measure the productivity benefits from using the tool, the growing willingness of the public to pay for subscriptions rather than using the tools for free illustrates the value they see in it.
“The first thing that surprised me is just the sheer volume of everything,” said Peter Lambert of the University of Warwick, one of the co-authors. It’s “unheard of” for a paid consumer technology to reach millions of adults within just a few years, he said.
Academics at the London School of Economics and Imperial Business School also contributed.
The figures also suggest the UK is performing well in terms of trying the new technology. The country’s consumer AI adoption is only about 10% behind the US, and significantly ahead of the European Union, according to separate research published by payments provider Stripe. Former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer laid out an ambition for Britain to be the fastest adopter of AI in the G7, although his successor, Andy Burnham, has been less clear.
Thursday’s research comes after the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) said AI seems to be benefitting corporate profits rather than workers. The ONS has previously pinned part of the surprising strength in recent UK growth data on the IT sector and AI, with economic output up 1.8% in the three months through August compared to a year ago. However, its director general of surveys and economic statistics James Benford said on Wednesday that the proceeds of a productivity uptick are largely “accruing to firms.”
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