Americans are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to help with things like research, writing, school or work projects, and analyzing data — but they’re not exactly happy about it.
Even as AI use and adoption rises, Americans continue to lack trust in the new tool, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published Monday. Of the nearly 1,400 Americans surveyed, more than three-quarters said they don’t trust AI — 76% say they trust it rarely or only sometimes, compared to just 21% who trust it most or almost all of the time.
That comes even as an increasing number of Americans adopt AI in their daily lives; only 27% said they’ve never used AI tools, down from 33% in April 2025.
“The contradiction between use and trust of AI is striking,” said Chetan Jaiswal, a computer science professor at Quinnipiac. “Fifty-one percent say they use AI for research, and many also use it for writing, work, and data analysis. But only 21 percent trust AI-generated information most or almost all of the time. Americans are clearly adopting AI, but they are doing so with deep hesitation, not deep trust.”
Part of that lack of trust might come from a feeling of dread about the future AI will bring. The poll found only a paltry 6% were “very excited” about AI while 62% were either not so excited or not at all excited. Those numbers are basically flipped when we talk about concern: 80% are either very concerned or somewhat concerned about AI, with Millennials and Baby Boomers taking the mantle of most worried, and Gen Z following not far behind.
A solid half (55%) say AI will do more harm than good in their day-to-day lives, while only a third say AI will do more good than harm, according to the poll. More people have negative views about AI compared to last year’s survey, according to the researchers — which may not be surprising after a year of Big Tech layoffs, life-ending AI psychosis cases, and energy-grid-straining data centers.
Americans across the board oppose building AI data centers in their communities, with 65% saying they wouldn’t want one built, primarily citing high electricity costs and water use.
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A majority (70%) think AI advancements will cut the number of job opportunities, whereas only 7% think AI will lead to more job opportunities. That’s a shift from the 56% of Americans who last year thought advancements in AI would lead to a decrease in jobs and the 13% who thought AI would increase job opportunities. Members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2008, are the most pessimistic, with 81% foreseeing a decrease in jobs.
They’re not exactly imagining it, either. Entry-level job postings in the U.S. have sunk 35% since 2023, and AI leaders like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have warned that the tech will wipe out jobs.
“Younger Americans report the highest familiarity with AI tools, but they are also the least optimistic about the labor market,” Tamilla Triantoro, a professor of business analytics and information systems at Quinnipiac, said in a statement. “AI fluency and optimism here are moving in opposite directions.”
Interestingly, even though most Americans are worried about AI’s effect on the labor market as a whole, most don’t think it’s coming for their jobs specifically. Among employed Americans, 30% are concerned AI will make their jobs obsolete. Still, that’s up from 21% last year.
“Americans are more worried about what AI may do to the labor market than about what it may do to their own jobs,” Triantoro said. “People seem more willing to predict a tougher market than to picture themselves on the losing end of that disruption — a pattern worth watching as the technology moves deeper into the workplace,”
Perhaps a big reason Americans have trust issues with AI is because they don’t believe the companies behind the technology are telling the truth. Two-thirds of respondents said businesses aren’t doing enough to be transparent about their AI use. That same percentage also says the government isn’t doing enough to regulate AI. The sentiment comes as states push to maintain their authority over AI rules, even as federal officials — including under Trump’s latest, largely light-touch AI framework — and industry leaders advocate for limiting state-level regulation.
“Americans are not rejecting AI outright, but they are sending a warning,” Triantoro said. “Too much uncertainty, too little trust, too little regulation, and too much fear about jobs.”
