Americans Have Turned Against AI, Pew Poll Shows

Public sentiment toward AI is deteriorating even as usage climbs, according to fresh Pew Research data highlighted by Futurism. That gap between adoption and approval is a problem for an industry whose valuations are priced on relentless demand growth.

What the Pew poll found

In a sweeping new poll conducted by Pew Research, only 16 percent of respondents said they believed AI will have a positive impact on society. A full 40 percent of respondents said they anticipate AI will have a negative impact on society, and 31 percent said it will impact them personally in a negative way, too.

Meanwhile, 49 percent of adults say they use AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which remains the most popular by a considerable margin, with a quarter saying they use the tools daily. That proportion is considerably higher than the 33 percent of American adults who said they used AI chatbots in 2024. In other words, the tech’s widespread adoption isn’t helping its perception.

Heaviest users are the most hostile

Gen Z adults, ages 18 to 29, were the most wary of AI, with 48 percent believing it’ll be negative for society. Yet they’re also the group that reported using AI the most, at 66 percent.

The 30-49 year olds and the 50-and-up brackets are more closely aligned, at 39 percent and 37 percent respectively viewing it as negative. They’re using AI less, though the dropoff between their usage is significant: 61 percent of 30-49 year olds said they used AI chatbots, while only 42 percent of 50-64 year olds did.

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Why it matters for the trade

In any case, it’s a real problem for AI’s long-term staying power. Right now the industry is being propelled by hype and the mountains of cash that’re being pumped into it, while profits remain elusive. If no one likes AI years or decades from now, will there be enough customers to keep the industry running?

The friction is already showing up in politics. In the United States, a YouGov poll found that three-quarters of Americans think AI should be more heavily regulated, an anxiety shared across the political aisle, and people are increasingly channeling their frustration toward data centers — one of the few tangible points of leverage ordinary people have against an otherwise untouchable, trillion-dollar tech industry.

Options market and stocks to watch

Watch how the sentiment shift filters into names most exposed to AI capex and consumer AI adoption:

NVDA: Watch for headline risk around data center regulation and any moderation in hyperscaler capex commentary.

MSFT: Watch Copilot attach rates and enterprise AI monetization for signs the usage-versus-approval gap is denting willingness to pay.

GOOGL: Watch for regulatory pressure and public pushback tied to AI overviews and Gemini rollouts.

META: Watch reactions to AI-generated content policies as trust in AI-versus-human content erodes.

PLTR: Watch government AI contracts as sentiment feeds into policy debates over federal AI use.

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