A comparative analysis of generative AI adoption among design professionals in China and the United Kingdom: a UTAUT perspective

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly transforming the design industry, offering new capabilities to enhance creativity and streamline design processes. However, there is still limited understanding of how design professionals in different countries and technological environments view and use these tools, especially given the uneven global development of GenAI. Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology framework (UTAUT), this study aims to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of GenAI tools among design professionals in China and the United Kingdom (UK). Overall, 607 responses (233 from China and 374 from the UK) were collected from a cross-national survey. The results showed that in both China and the UK, performance expectations, social influence, and resistance bias had a strong effect on designers’ intentions to use GenAI tools. Trust was important in the UK but not in China, while access to technology and related resources was a stronger moderating factor in China. These findings highlight the role of technological contexts in shaping how professionals adopt GenAI in design work. By providing insights into these differences, this study contributes to the understanding of how GenAI can be adopted more effectively by design professionals in different regions and how these differences may influence the future global competitive landscape of GenAI in design.