Stanford University's Human-Centered AI Institute has published its annual AI Index 2026, the most comprehensive data-driven snapshot of artificial intelligence progress, adoption and societal impact.
Anthropic leads overall rankings
For the first time, Anthropic tops Stanford's overall model performance rankings, narrowly ahead of xAI, Google and OpenAI. The ranking aggregates performance across reasoning, coding, science and language benchmarks.
Adoption outpacing all previous technologies
The report's most striking finding is the pace of adoption. AI tools reached 500 million regular users faster than the personal computer, the internet, or the smartphone. The authors attribute this to zero-friction access — unlike previous technology waves, AI requires no hardware purchase or technical setup.
Key statistics from the report
As of early 2026, 67% of knowledge workers report using AI tools at least weekly. AI-assisted code now accounts for an estimated 35% of all new code committed to public repositories. Investment in AI infrastructure reached $420 billion globally in 2025 — more than double the 2023 figure.
The full report is available at hai.stanford.edu.