What are early adopters?

Definition: Early adopters is a term Everett M. Rogers uses to define one of the 5 categories of people in product adoption. More precisely, early adopters are people or companies who are among the first to adopt a new product on the market.

Unlike innovators, early adopters need some convincing before buying something new and potentially risky.

Example of early adopters

Microsoft is one of the early adopters of Chat GPT, a pre-trained language model developed by OpenAi. The company started using Chat GPT in 2021 to develop conversational AI for its messaging platforms.

The benefits for Microsoft, and other early adopters, are:

Exclusive tech support
Competitive advantage
Potential influence on future updates

Get started

Article FAQs

How to market to early adopters?

The best way to target and market to early adopters is to reach them prior to product launch and make an effort to convince them. You can offer them a free trial, discount, tech support, previous research of the market, behind-the-scenes, and anything that will convince them to make a decision.

What are the 5 categories of adopters?

The 5 categories of adopters are: Innovators, Early adopters, Early majority, Late majority, Laggards

What is the difference between innovators and early adopters?

Innovators are people or companies that don’t consider the risk factor and buy as soon as something that interests them is out. Early adopters take a bit more time to research and consider the risk, but unlike other categories, they are willing to try the product during early development.