Innovation diffusion is the process by which a new technology, practice or idea spreads through a population over time. It is studied with adoption curves that describe how successive groups take up an innovation.
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- Innovation diffusion describes how an innovation moves from early adopters to the wider population, often following an S-shaped cumulative adoption curve. Factors include the relative advantage of the innovation, its compatibility with existing practice and the influence of social contacts.
- In computational settings the process is modelled with agent-based simulations and aggregate adoption equations, which are used to forecast uptake of products and behaviours. The framing connects work in economics, sociology and the study of technology adoption.