Hong Kong is not simply ahead or behind on AI: PwC says 61% of Hong Kong respondents use AI at work, close to the Asia Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%, while a Cisco survey reported by the S... Company level engagement is high but not region leading: a survey reported by China Daily HK fou...
Published byEdited with GPT-5.5Images generated with GPT Image 2
Hong Kong is not simply ahead or behind on AI: PwC says 61% of Hong Kong respondents use AI at work, close to the Asia Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%, while a Cisco survey reported by the S...
Company level engagement is high but not region leading: a survey reported by China Daily HK found 85% of Hong Kong companies had adopted or integrated AI in operations, below 93% across the rest of Asia.[9]
Deployment is increasing, but maturity remains limited: KPMG says the share of Hong Kong organisations widely deploying AI rose from 8% in 2025 to 24% in 2026.[10]
香港 AI 採用真相：員工用得快，企業準備慢香港的 AI 採用呈現雙軌現象：員工使用率不低，但企業準備度仍偏弱。AI 生成示意圖。
AI Prompt
Create a landscape editorial hero image for this Studio Global article: 香港 AI 採用真相：員工用得快，企業準備慢. Article summary: 香港唔算全面領先：PwC 指 61% 香港受訪者工作用 AI，接近亞太 64%；但 Cisco 調查顯示只有 2% 機構完全準備好，關鍵落差係個人使用快過企業準備。[3][4]. Topic tags: ai, hong kong, enterprise ai, generative ai, digital transformation. Reference image context from search candidates: Reference image 1: visual subject "羅兵咸永道一份職場調查報告指出，本港有61%員工已在工作中應用人工智能(AI)，高於全球平均，過去1年使用AI最多的包括資訊科技、商業策略與研發的工作。" source context "報告：本港有61%員工已應用人工智能 - RTHK" Reference image 2: visual subject "羅兵咸永道一份職場調查報告指出，本港有61%員工已在工作中應用人工智能(AI)，高於全球平均，過去1年使用AI最多的包括資訊科技、商業策略與研發的工作。" source context "報告：本港有61%員工已應用人工智能 - RTHK" Style: premium digital editorial illustration, source-backed research mood, clean composition, high detail, modern web publication hero. Use reference image context only for broad subject, composition, and topical grounding; do not copy the exact image. Av
openai.com
The clearest answer is: Hong Kong is moving quickly at the worker level, but more slowly at the enterprise-readiness level. That makes it hard to call the city either a clear AI leader or a clear laggard.
First, separate use from readiness
AI adoption is often discussed as if it were one number. It is not. At least three different questions are being mixed together:
Are employees using AI at work? This captures individual or team-level use of tools such as generative AI assistants.
Studio Global AI
Continue your research
This page includes a source-backed answer you can continue inside Studio Global.
What is the short answer to "Is Hong Kong Ahead or Behind on AI Adoption?"?
Hong Kong is not simply ahead or behind on AI: PwC says 61% of Hong Kong respondents use AI at work, close to the Asia Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%, while a Cisco survey reported by the S...
What are the key points to validate first?
Hong Kong is not simply ahead or behind on AI: PwC says 61% of Hong Kong respondents use AI at work, close to the Asia Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%, while a Cisco survey reported by the S... Company level engagement is high but not region leading: a survey reported by China Daily HK found 85% of Hong Kong companies had adopted or integrated AI in operations, below 93% across the rest of Asia.[9]
What should I do next in practice?
Deployment is increasing, but maturity remains limited: KPMG says the share of Hong Kong organisations widely deploying AI rose from 8% in 2025 to 24% in 2026.[10]
Have companies integrated AI into operations? This suggests AI has entered some business processes, but does not necessarily mean it is deeply embedded or mature.
Are organisations ready to scale AI safely and effectively? This is a higher bar, involving governance, data, security, workflows, measurement and change management.
On the first measure, Hong Kong looks relatively strong. On the third, it looks much weaker.
The key figures
Measure
Hong Kong data
What it means
Employees using AI at work
PwC Hong Kong says 61% of Hong Kong respondents use AI at work, close to the Asia-Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%.
If the question is whether workers are using AI, Hong Kong is not far behind.
Organisations fully ready for AI
A Cisco survey reported by the South China Morning Post found only 2% of Hong Kong organisations were fully prepared for AI adoption, the lowest among 30 surveyed markets; about 2% were classed as “pacesetters”, compared with 13% globally.
If the question is whether companies are ready for mature, large-scale AI adoption, Hong Kong performs poorly.
Companies adopting or integrating AI in operations
A survey reported by China Daily HK found 85% of Hong Kong companies had adopted or integrated AI in operations, below 93% in the rest of Asia.
Many firms are touching AI, but Hong Kong is not leading the region on this measure.
Organisations widely deploying AI
KPMG says the share of Hong Kong organisations widely deploying AI rose from 8% in 2025 to 24% in 2026.
Deployment is growing, but 24% still means only about one in four organisations have reached broad deployment.
Expected future use
The Asset reported that 94% of surveyed employers and 91% of surveyed workers expect to use generative AI tools on the job within five years.
Appetite is high, but expected future use is not the same as mature adoption today.
Why 61% and 2% can both be true
The two most striking numbers measure different things. PwC’s 61% figure is about whether people in Hong Kong are using AI at work. Cisco’s 2% figure is about whether organisations are fully prepared to adopt AI.
Those findings are not contradictory. A company can have many employees using AI to draft documents, summarise information or speed up routine tasks, while the organisation itself still lacks the systems needed for responsible, scalable use. That gap — fast individual adoption, slower organisational readiness — is the main story in Hong Kong’s AI market.
Where Hong Kong looks stronger: workplace use and appetite
On employee use, Hong Kong does not look like a laggard. PwC Hong Kong’s survey found that 61% of local respondents are using AI at work, close to the Asia-Pacific average of 64% and above the global average of 54%.
Among Hong Kong workers who use AI, 77% said it had increased productivity, while 75% said it helped improve the quality of their work. That suggests many frontline users already see practical value in the technology.
Expectations are also high. The Asset reported that 94% of surveyed employers and 91% of surveyed workers expect to use generative AI tools on the job within the next five years.
Where Hong Kong looks weaker: enterprise readiness
The harder question is not whether people are experimenting with AI. It is whether companies are ready to deploy it across the business in a controlled, measurable and scalable way.
On that measure, Hong Kong’s position is weaker. The South China Morning Post reported Cisco survey findings showing that only 2% of Hong Kong organisations were fully prepared for AI adoption — the lowest share among 30 surveyed markets. The same survey found only about 2% of Hong Kong organisations were “pacesetters”, compared with 13% globally.
Operational adoption also shows a mixed picture. China Daily HK reported a survey finding that 85% of Hong Kong companies had adopted or integrated AI in operations, but that was still below the 93% rate recorded across the rest of Asia.
There is progress. KPMG says the share of Hong Kong organisations widely deploying AI increased from 8% in 2025 to 24% in 2026. But even at 24%, broad deployment remains far from universal.
How to judge whether a company is really AI-ready
Counting how many employees have opened an AI tool can overstate corporate maturity. A more useful test is whether AI has become part of managed, measurable and scalable workflows.
For a Hong Kong organisation, the practical questions are:
Is AI connected to core business processes, or is it mainly a personal productivity tool?
Do AI use cases have clear business metrics, such as time saved, quality improved or revenue gained?
Are data access, security, compliance and human review rules clearly defined?
Can pilots move beyond one team and scale across departments?
Is the company measuring outcomes, not just counting users?
These questions separate “people are using AI” from “the organisation is ready for AI”. Based on the public data available, Hong Kong’s main weakness is the second category.
The bottom line
If AI adoption means employee usage, Hong Kong is in decent shape: PwC’s data puts it close to the Asia-Pacific average and above the global average.
If AI adoption means enterprise maturity, readiness and broad deployment, Hong Kong is not yet a clear leader: Cisco’s survey found only 2% of organisations were fully ready for AI adoption, the lowest among 30 surveyed markets.
So the best answer is not simply “ahead” or “behind”. It is this: Hong Kong workers are adopting AI quickly, but many companies are still catching up on readiness, governance and large-scale deployment.
A note on comparing the numbers
These figures come from different surveys, consultancies, technology companies and media reports. Their samples, questions and definitions of “adoption” are not identical.
That means the 61%, 85%, 24% and 2% figures should not be added together or treated as interchangeable. The more reliable way to read them is to keep the layers separate: employee use, operational integration and organisational readiness. On that basis, the pattern is consistent: Hong Kong has strong AI interest and meaningful workplace use, but enterprise maturity remains the bottleneck.
theasset.comHong Kong all in on AI as adoption ramps up | The Asset
scmp.comHong Kong lags in AI readiness among 30 global markets, survey shows | South China Morning Post
pwchk.comPwC Hong Kong: Hong Kong’s workforce is adapting to technological shifts, especially AI, while navigating workplace fatigue: PwC
chinadailyhk.com85 percent of HK companies embrace AI in operations
kpmg.comKPMG: Hong Kong organisations focus recruitment on revenue-linked roles as AI adoption advances