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Digital 2026 Global Overview Report provides an overview of global digitalization

The Digital 2026 Global Overview Report, published in collaboration with Meltwater and We Are Social, provides a comprehensive overview of the global digital world. The 700-page Global Digital Report 2026 highlights current and exciting developments in internet usage, social media, smart devices, gaming, social commerce, and the rapid rise of AI.

Here are some insights into the latest global social media insights. 

Initial insights

  • Over six billion people are now online.

  • Social media users now form a supermajority.

  • More than a billion people use AI every month.

  • Exciting insights into what people actually use AI for.

  • Updates on the most popular social media platforms worldwide

  • An overview of the current state of global advertising 


Six billion internet users worldwide 

According to the latest analysis by Kepios, more than 6 billion people are now online, which corresponds to global internet usage of 73.2 percent. This means that in less than eleven years since the three billion mark was broken in November 2014, the number of global internet users has doubled. 
Despite this impressive development, more than a quarter of the world's population remains offline. This shows that digital participation is still far from being a reality everywhere.

Trends in advertising spending

Insights from Statista show that marketers worldwide will spend around US$1.16 trillion on advertising in 2025 – an increase of 6.5 percent compared to 2024. A deeper analysis of Statista's data shows that digital channels will account for almost three-quarters of total advertising spending in 2025 – 74.4 percent – representing a relative increase of 2.4 percent from 72.7 percent in 2024.

The most popular social platforms

New data from GWI shows that adult internet users use an average of 6.75 social media platforms per month. Globally, Facebook continues to have the largest reach, but WhatsApp is enjoying greater popularity: 17.4 percent of respondents aged 16 and older named the messenger as their favorite app.

Search engines are losing importance

The proportion of adult internet users who have used a search engine at least once in the last month continues to decline. According to GWI, only 80.3 percent of them said they had used tools such as Google or Yahoo! in recent months. This is the lowest figure GWI has measured to date.

Other exciting highlights from the report 

  • Social media users make up 68.7 percent of the world's population and have a total of 5.66 billion accounts.

  • Over a billion people use LLMs and GenAI platforms every month.

  • The main motivation for using social media remains keeping in touch with friends – more than half of adult users cite this as their main reason for using social media.

  • Social ads are the most important driver of brand awareness among 16- to 34-year-olds.

  • Women between the ages of 16 and 24 spend an average of three hours and 40 minutes per day on social and video platforms – more than any other target group.

  • Streaming services now account for over 50 percent of total TV viewing time worldwide.

Click on the source reference to access the full report. 

Source: https://wearesocial.com/uk/blog/2025/10/digital-2026-global-overview-report/ 

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