A new study discovered that artificial intelligence processes Polish more accurately than any other language, while English only reached sixth place. Researchers from the University of Maryland and Microsoft analyzed 26 languages to determine which ones AI systems comprehend best.
Their results overturned common assumptions. “English did not lead,” the authors explained. “It ranked sixth in extended text analysis, while Polish achieved the top position.” The experiment tested models from OpenAI, Google Gemini, Qwen, Llama, and DeepSeek, all given identical prompts in different languages.
Machines Excel at Polish Despite Limited Data
Polish produced an average accuracy rate of 88%, making it the most effective language for AI communication. The Polish Patent Office remarked, “Polish turns out to be ideal for AI commands. People find it complex, but AI understands it easily.”
Researchers highlighted that AI models performed so well despite having far less Polish data for training compared with English or Chinese. In contrast, Chinese ranked near the bottom—only fourth from last among all languages tested.
The Languages AI Understands the Best
The study ranked Polish first with an 88% accuracy rate, followed closely by French at 87% and Italian at 86%. Spanish came next at 85%, then Russian at 84%. English landed in sixth place with 83.9%, narrowly ahead of Ukrainian at 83.5%, Portuguese at 82%, German at 81%, and Dutch closing the top ten with 80%.
Researchers concluded that AI doesn’t necessarily favor the world’s most widely spoken or easiest languages. Ironically, one of the hardest for humans—Polish—proved the clearest for machines.
