Every week I pull together the latest public opinion research on artificial intelligence — and some weeks the data tells a clearer story than others. This is one of those weeks.
The word of the week is disconnects. Between adoption and trust. Between executives and workers. Between parents and their kids. Between what AI promises and what it's actually delivering.
Americans are using AI at historically unprecedented rates. They also kind of hate it. Let's dig in.
64% of Americans Use AI Monthly. They Also Kind of Hate It.
Verasight reports that figure — roughly twice the adoption rate of TV in the 1950s and four times faster than cell phones in the 1990s.
And yet 56% feel anxious about AI's rise, versus just 42% who are excited. The youngest, heaviest users — adults 18-29 — are the most anxious age group. Familiarity isn't breeding comfort. It's breeding dread.
The NBC News poll makes it vivid: AI carries a net favorability of -20 among registered voters. That's worse than ICE (-18) and Donald Trump (-12). Only the Democratic Party and Iran score lower. 57% of voters say AI's risks outweigh its benefits — while 56% used an AI platform in the past two months.
They're using it because they feel they have to, not because they want to. That's a shaky foundation for an industry counting on public goodwill.
Kids vs. Parents — The Perfect Mirror
Some of the sharpest data this week comes from education — where AI has created a clean generational fault line.
Common Sense Media surveyed teens and parents separately. The result is almost comically symmetrical:
- 52% of teens say using AI for school assignments is innovative and should be encouraged
- 52% of parents say it's unethical and should carry consequences
Teens see a tool. Parents see a shortcut. But here's the thing — they actually agree on the stakes. Both groups want schools to teach AI literacy (68% of teens, 52% of parents), and both worry AI could make kids less creative (70% of parents, 62% of teens).
The Pew roundup confirms the adoption story: 64% of U.S. teens now use AI chatbots, and about 6 in 10 say chatbot cheating is common at school.
Meanwhile, UK undergrads are even further along. The HEPI/Savanta survey puts AI use at 95% — near universal. The share directly submitting AI-generated text in assessed work has quadrupled in two years (3% to 12%). And institutional guidance? 37% feel encouraged by their university to use AI. 36% say the opposite. That's not a policy. That's a coin flip.
Pair that with Inside Higher Ed's survey of U.S. college presidents: 53% are optimistic about AI on campus, but 52% admit AI literacy isn't widespread and the sector is unprepared. The students are all-in. The institutions are still writing the memo.
Nobody's On the Same Page at Work
If education is a generational divide, the workplace is a multi-level communication breakdown.
The C-Suite Lives in a Different Reality
Here's the most counterintuitive finding of the week: 4 Corner Resources reports executives are heavier AI users than younger workers — flipping the typical tech adoption curve on its head. And those who use AI most are the most fearful about its job market impact.
The Slingshot/Dynata survey finds that massive mandate gap. 54% of employees call AI helpful but not essential. Leadership thinks it's a corporate mandate. Workers think it's a nice-to-have.
Entry-Level Hiring: The Canary in the Coal Mine
The jobs picture is complicated. The Snowflake IT exec survey shows 42% say AI has only created jobs, 11% only lost, 35% both. That "both" number honestly tracks with what we're seeing in hiring data and corporate announcements right now.
But the entry-level numbers are darker. Resume.org found 21% of companies have already frozen entry-level hiring because of AI — projected to hit 47% by 2027. Entry-level may be where the impact shows up first. Frontier models are increasingly matching entry-level knowledge work output. If you're cutting somewhere, you cut at the bottom.
AI Was Supposed to Reduce Your Workload. It Didn't. Yet.
The biggest myth-buster of the week: the ActivTrak Productivity Lab — not a survey but behavioral telemetry from 163,000+ workers — found zero evidence of workload reduction after AI adoption. Every measured work category went up. Email time: +104%. Chat: +145%. Saturday productive hours jumped 46%.
This is the Jevons Paradox in real-time: when a tool makes something more efficient, you don't do less of it. You do more.
This week Poll Vault tracked 32 AI polls — see them all →
A Doctor, A Minister, and Somebody With a Rash Walk Into a Bar
I don't usually get to cover two such different professional communities in the same week, but here we are.
Doctors are all in. The AMA's 2026 survey shows 81% of physicians now use AI in practice — more than doubled since 2023. 76% say it improves patient care. But 88% worry about skill loss, and 85% want a seat at the table when their practice adopts AI tools. Healthcare execs are even more bullish: 81% expect transformative impact within two years.
Patients haven't gotten the memo. Gallup finds just 16% of Americans use AI for medical advice — dead last among all sources, tied with social media.
Ministers are quietly adopting too. MinistryWatch reports 86% of Christian ministry executives are using or experimenting with AI, and 47% use it daily. Small sample (n=99), but the signal is clear: this isn't just a tech industry thing anymore.
Data Centers Are Losing the PR Battle
This story keeps getting worse for tech. Pew (n=8,512) finds 75% of Americans have now heard about data centers, and awareness is strongly linked to more negative views:
- 38% say mostly bad for energy bills (vs. 6% good)
- Only 25% say mostly good for jobs
That jobs number stings. It echoes what I've seen in focus groups: people know data centers aren't job bonanzas. Construction is temporary. Permanent staff is minimal. A surprising number of people think permanent employment is in the single digits.
The good news for tech (sort of): Consumer Reports shows data centers rank third among top drivers of energy costs — behind utility company profits (49%) and infrastructure repair costs (38%). Navigator Research shows battleground voters split blame between utilities (37%) and high-energy industries (33%).
Translation: Data centers don't currently get top blame for your electric bill. But the trendline is moving that way, and this week's data is crystal clear — the more people learn about data centers, the less they like them.
This Week's Shorter Stories
Regulation: Rasmussen finds 61% want government AI regulation vs. 25% free market. My caveat: these polls almost never offer a middle option. If you gave people a choice between "heavy regulation," "safety guardrails only," and "hands off" — the middle option would win going away.
Trust: Only 25% believe tech companies will develop AI responsibly; 50% disagree (Verasight). Bad number, but I suspect most of this is about safety concerns — not blanket anti-tech sentiment.
Misinformation: 85% say AI will likely spread political misinformation in the midterms — 86% of Dems, 88% of independents, 81% of Republicans (PBS/NPR/Marist). That's rare bipartisan consensus. Expect a lot more polling here as November approaches.
The Anthropic/Pentagon Question: 44% say AI companies should be able to restrict military use of their tools; 25% say the military should use it however it wants (YouGov/Economist). Interesting — but would benefit from more rigorous testing with stronger arguments presented for each side.
Next Week
- Entry-level hiring data — if Resume.org's projections hold, watch BLS numbers for 18-24 year olds
- Data center opposition — awareness is growing, and it's correlated with opposition, not acceptance
- The political vacuum — a third of voters say neither party handles AI well. Someone's going to claim this issue. Who moves first?
What Else We Tracked This Week
Not everything made the cut above, but Poll Vault discovered all of these in the past 7 days:
- Nearly Half of Canadian Women Fear Workplace Backlash for Using AI — Monday Girl
- AI Use Among U.S. Workers Surges, Especially in Public Sector — Gallup
- Most Workers Are Doing Three Jobs at Once — Without a Raise or Promotion — Talker Research / Office Beacon
- 79% of Voters — Including 80% of Republicans — Distrust Corporate America — Cygnal
- Nearly 8 in 10 Brits Say Live Music and Theatre Are Safe From AI Replacement — UK Omnibus Group / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Voters See AI Transformation Coming — But Say It Hasn't Arrived Yet — Fox News / Beacon Research
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