How countries can end the capability overhang Hoe landen de capability overhang kunnen beëindigen

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AI is advancing at extraordinary speed, but many countries are not yet leveraging its full potential to benefit people and drive economic growth. There is a capability overhangbetween those who are taking advantage of these tools and everybody else. If that overhang continues to grow, a small number of countries will pull further ahead economically and technologically, while others risk falling behind in ways that will be difficult to reverse.

New research we’re releasing today in our report,_Ending the Capability Overhang_⁠(opens in a new window), shows how large this overhang has already become. The typical power user relies on about seven times more advanced “thinking capabilities” than the typical user—using AI for more complex, multi-step work rather than simple prompts.

We also observe a clear country-level gap, and it isn’t driven by income alone. Across more than 70 countries with the highest ChatGPT usage, some countries use 3× more thinking capabilities per person than others. While large economies like the United States and India lead in total users—and smaller high-income countries like Singapore and the Netherlands stand out in population penetration—advanced AI adoption is not confined to wealthy nations. Countries such as Vietnam and Pakistan rank among the world’s top users of agentic tools, with more than 2× higher per-person use of advanced tasks like data analysis, Connectors, and Codex.

Put plainly, this means some countries are already using AI to solve harder problems and move faster, regardless of how many resources they have. These differences already translate into real productivity gains, freeing people to take on harder tasks, build new products and services, and accelerate innovation in ways that drive economic growth and improve living standards.

That’s why we launched OpenAI for Countries last year: to help governments and institutions put AI and its gains into the hands of more people. The initiative supports countries as they move from basic use to deeper adoption—including integrating AI into education systems, workplaces, and public services in ways that raise productivity, strengthen institutions, and expand opportunity. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, OpenAI for Countries is built around partnerships that reflect local needs, priorities, and capacity.

Today at our OpenAI event alongside the World Economic Forum, we announced that we’re expanding this work in 2026 with new initiatives focused on education, health, AI skills training and certifications, disaster response and preparedness, cybersecurity, and start-up accelerators. They give nations a range of options for how to work with us to address their needs and priorities.

A key focus of this expansion is helping partner nations prepare for an AI-driven world, starting with OpenAI’s Education for Countries program. It’s designed to help governments bring AI into their education systems in ways that strengthen learning and prepare students for the jobs of the future—and to work hand-in-hand with governments to improve our models and education tools. Looking forward, I’m also excited about the prospect of finding ways to work with the creative and cultural sectors of OpenAI for Countries partners.

With more workplaces adopting AI and more employers seeking workers with AI skills, governments are increasingly treating the technology as essential education infrastructure. That means helping learners build AI skills while equipping educators with new tools and training to guide students to use the tools in ways that advance learning and critical thinking. The first set of Edu for Countries partners includes Estonia, the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Jordan, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Trinidad & Tobago, and Italy’s CRUI. Working with ministries, universities, and researchers across these systems, the program will combine expanded access to advanced AI tools, large-scale research into AI’s impact on education and learning, training and certifications for both students and educators, and a growing global community of partners working to shape responsible approaches to using AI in education.

Like Education for Countries, the rest of our new initiatives are designed to be flexible and shaped through ongoing discussions with our partners about how to translate AI capability into real-world impact. Countries have a significant opportunity to capture productivity gains by improving adoption—scaling enterprise use, building AI-ready infrastructure, and increasing AI fluency across workforces and classrooms. And as AI capabilities continue to advance, acting now gives countries the opportunity to turn that progress into concrete benefits for people everywhere.

Read more about our OpenAI for Countries expansion in the Ending the Capability Gap report here⁠⁠(opens in a new window).

Read more about our OpenAI for Countries expansion in the Ending the Capability Gap report here⁠⁠(opens in a new window).

* Global Affairs

Author

George Osborne

George Osborne