Only London, the South East and the East of England have higher rates of adults paying for an AI assistant.
People in the North West are among the most likely in the UK to pay for an AI assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude, according to new research by the University of Warwick.
In June 2026, an estimated 4.8% of adults in the North West paid for an AI assistant out of their own pockets, the fourth-highest rate among UK regions and nations. Londoners are leading the UK’s recent subscription surge with nearly one in 13 adults (7.9%) estimated to be paying for AI.
The research, Who Pays for AI?, by economists at Warwick and Imperial College London, tracks payments for services such as ChatGPT and Claude using anonymised bank and card transaction data. It estimates that around 2.8 million UK adults are now paying for an AI assistant, with UK consumers spending over £1 billion a year on AI products.
The study also found that people in IT, university and college teaching, and finance and insurance were most likely to pay for an AI assistant. Rates were also high among project and procurement managers, and marketing and PR professionals. Men outnumbered women three to one among those who signed up early, but women now make up nearly half of new subscribers.
ChatGPT is still the UK’s most popular paid AI assistant, but Claude is gaining ground; it is especially popular with people in technical and professional jobs, and some subscribers are choosing its more expensive plans.
Commenting on their results, Dr Peter Lambert from University of Warwick’s Department of Economics said: “Millions of people are now putting their hands into their own pockets to pay for AI every month. In little more than three years, these tools have become a billion-pound consumer market in the UK. This surge has been phenomenal and with only one in twenty adults currently subscribing, there’s still room for further growth. The big question is how many people currently using free AI tools will eventually decide they are worth paying for?”
Dr Nikhil Datta from the University of Warwick’s Department of Economics added: “People whose jobs involve tasks that AI can help with are more likely to pay for it themselves, so that suggests people are buying these tools partly for what they can do for them at work. The first paying customers were disproportionately men and high earners, but that picture is changing rapidly with women now making up nearly half of new subscribers.”
Dr Patrick Schneider from Imperial Business School said: “Like many early-stage markets, the picture can change very quickly. ChatGPT still leads at present, but its early dominance is shrinking. Claude captured almost a third of consumer subscription spending by July, up from just 7% seven months earlier.”
