Americans' AI skepticism rises as familiarity grows, Gallup finds
In brief
- Seven in 10 Americans say they're knowledgeable about AI, up from 64% in 2024
- 39% believe AI does more harm than good, up from 31% last year
- Trust in businesses using AI responsibly dropped to 27% from 31%
- 79% of Americans expect AI to reduce jobs over the next decade
- 15% trust AI companies to make development decisions
Knowledge up, trust down
Seven in 10 Americans now say they're somewhat or extremely knowledgeable about AI, up from 64% in 2024. Yet this rising awareness has coincided with growing wariness. Thirty-nine percent of Americans say AI does more harm than good, up from 31% in 2025. Just 9% say AI does more good than harm, while 52% believe it does equal amounts of harm and good.
The generational divide is particularly sharp. Nearly half of Americans ages 18 to 29 now say AI does more harm than good, up from 36% last year. Older Americans show similar trends—among adults ages 45 to 59, expectations of AI-driven job losses increased from 75% to 84%.
Business trust erodes
Twenty-seven percent of Americans said they trust businesses at least 'some' to use AI responsibly, down from 31% in 2025. Among younger adults, the drop is steeper. Among adults ages 18 to 29, trust in businesses to use AI responsibly dropped from 30% to 20%, while those with no trust at all increased from 29% to 41%.
Broader polling reinforces the trend. An NBC News poll found 56% of Americans had recently used AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini, yet 57% said the technology's risks outweigh its benefits.
Job losses dominate concerns
Nearly eight in 10 Americans said AI will reduce the number of U.S. jobs over the next decade, up from 73% in 2025 to 79% in 2026. Among adults ages 18 to 29, the share expecting job losses from AI rose from 62% to 75%.
An Anthropic survey of nearly 52,000 Americans underscores this anxiety. Job losses were the public's top concern across every state and political party. Just 15% of Americans said they trust AI companies to make decisions about how the technology is developed and used.
When it comes to performance, Americans increasingly see AI as competitive with humans on certain tasks. Gallup found Americans increasingly view AI as performing about as well as people on tasks such as driving, providing financial advice, and providing medical advice. Yet respondents continued to rate people higher than AI across every category measured, including hiring decisions, creative work, and helping students with schoolwork.
"As familiarity has grown, so has skepticism." — Gallup
