Surveys on both sides of the Atlantic reveal a public more wary than wowed by AI, with distrust extending well beyond the technology and onto the tech executives promoting it.
Despite its rapid technological advances, AI still has not won people over.
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A new study by Pew Research shows that 52% of Americans are now more concerned than excited about its growing presence in daily life — up sharply from 37% in 2021. Just 9% feel more excited than concerned, while the remaining 37% are torn evenly between the two.
That unease is even more pronounced among younger generations. For the first time since Pew began tracking the question, 55% of adults under 30 now say they are more concerned than excited about AI — a majority.
This growing wariness extends beyond the technology itself and onto the people building it.
A CNBC Generation Lab poll asked 1,088 respondents whether they trusted nine of the industry's most prominent leaders to act responsibly, and found that a majority distrusted every single one.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella came out relatively best, though still with 65% saying they do not trust him.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp fared worst, distrusted by 81%. Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai were not far behind, both distrusted by around 75% of respondents. Only 36% thought an independent expert body should be the one setting the rules for AI.
More Europeans worried about AI taking their jobs
The same anxieties are showing up across the Atlantic.
A 2025 study by EY found that 42% of European employees worry AI could put their jobs at risk, while a broader survey by Verian Group for the European Commission found that 66% of the wider public believe AI will ultimately destroy more jobs than it creates.
Yet the picture is not entirely bleak: half of Europeans surveyed by Verian agreed that AI could help tackle major global challenges, from serious diseases to climate change.
Views on its broader impact were similarly split — 55% of EU citizens expected AI to shape daily life positively over the next 20 years, against 35% who anticipated the opposite.
Europeans also overwhelmingly back stronger oversight: 84% agree that AI and robots need to be carefully managed, primarily to protect privacy and ensure transparency.
At the same time, a majority still see AI's presence at work in a positive light — 62% view it favourably, against 32% who do not.
That caution may partly stem from a knowledge gap. More than 60% of Europeans say they do not feel informed about the potential risks of using AI in scientific research.
Taken together, the data suggests Europeans are somewhat more open to AI than Americans, yet also more inclined to demand regulation and safety guardrails.
In the United States, by contrast, AI's expansion is running into a different kind of resistance. Plans to build new AI data centres across the country are facing significant public backlash, even where developers offer incentives such as job guarantees.
Much of that pushback stems from a simple disconnect: many consumers do not see a clear personal benefit from the infrastructure being built around them.
For a long time, AI was something narrow and useful — a search tool, a chatbot.
Now, it is showing up everywhere: in televisions, video platforms, email, music, schoolwork and more.
And for a lot of people, the experience of that expansion has skewed negative, whether that means students using AI to cheat or artists watching their work absorbed into training data without consent.
