PH’s digital habits shift as AI use grows
The Philippines had 95.9 million internet users in October 2026, equal to 81.3 percent of the population. Social media continued to make up a large part of online activity, according to the Digital 2027 Global Report by We Are Social and Meltwater.
The report, released on Oct. 21, also found that Filipinos spent an average of 36 hours and 12 minutes a week on social media and short-video platforms, including TikTok and Reels. This placed the Philippines among the countries with the highest reported weekly use of these platforms.
These figures come as more people around the world start using generative artificial intelligence (AI), while online habits shift toward social media, mobile apps and services powered by AI.
Filipinos spend more time on social media
The report found that internet users in the Philippines spent an average of 26 hours and 11 minutes a week looking at social media posts and stories, not including videos. They used social media an average of 5.44 days a week.
Filipino internet users aged 16 and older also used an average of 8.43 different social media platforms each month, according to the report.
These figures describe reported habits among internet users, not the entire population of the Philippines. Social media account figures may not show the number of individual people because one person can have several accounts. Some accounts also belong to businesses or other groups.
Worldwide, the number of social media user identities reached 5.81 billion in October 2026, equal to 69.9 percent of the world's population. This was a 2.7 percent increase from the previous year, adding 151 million identities.
The report said the typical internet user spent 3.8 percent more time on social media and online video platforms than a year earlier, reaching an average of 19 hours and 18 minutes a week.
Generative AI adoption accelerates
Worldwide, an estimated 3.24 billion people actively used standalone generative AI tools, equal to 38.9 percent of the global population. The number grew by 57.2 percent in 12 months, adding 1.2 billion users.
The report's figures include standalone generative AI platforms but do not count AI features built into other software and apps. The number of users may not represent unique individuals.
The study said ChatGPT remained the leading generative AI platform, with twice as many monthly active users as its closest competitor. Google's Gemini also grew, with the number of people using its mobile app increasing fourfold over the past year. The report said Gemini's number of web users was more than 60 percent of ChatGPT's.
The supplied report materials did not give a directly comparable national total for users of standalone generative AI platforms in the Philippines.
Suzie Shaw, chief executive of We Are Social APAC, said: “AI is changing how people discover brands, but social remains central to where people spend their time and form preferences. The conversations, recommendations and opinions people share online are increasingly informing the answers AI gives and the decisions people make.”
Mimrah Mahmood, Meltwater's vice president of enterprise sales for APAC, said: “Across APAC, where digital behaviors and platform preferences vary widely between markets, brands can no longer rely on a single channel to reach their audiences. With generative AI adoption surging nearly 60 percent in the last year, the customer journey is being rewritten in real time — changing how people discover information and evaluate brands.”
Internet use shifts toward apps, AI
The report also found that traffic to traditional websites was falling. Across the world's 10,000 largest web domains, total monthly traffic dropped by more than 10 percent since ChatGPT became publicly available. Time spent using the web also fell by 11.2 percent over the previous 24 months.
However, people still used search engines more often than AI platforms to research brands. Adults around the world who used the internet were 74 percent more likely to say they visited search engines to research brands than to say they visited an AI platform for this purpose.
The report said internet users relied on an average of 5.8 channels to discover new brands. The number of internet users worldwide reached 6.15 billion, equal to 73.9 percent of the global population.
Digital advertising spending grew by 8.7 percent over the past year, according to the report. Spending on social media advertising rose by 18 percent, while spending on influencer advertising increased by 15 percent.
The findings use data from sources including GWI, Similarweb and Statista, along with data from platforms and other industry sources. The report covers digital access, internet and social media use, AI, online shopping, digital finance, news use and digital advertising.
For the Philippines, the figures show how widely social media is used among people who are connected to the internet. The report's global data also show that generative AI and changing ways of finding information online are reshaping digital habits.