Optimism and anxiety, rising together
Benefits-outweigh-drawbacks hit 59% — but nervousness also climbed to 52%.
Optimism is rising — and so is anxiety
Chapter 9 of the AI Index 2026 reads the public mood across three layers — global sentiment, the expert-versus-public divide in the US, and trust in who should regulate AI. People increasingly see the benefits, yet nervousness keeps climbing and experts live in a very different world from everyone else. The numbers:
59% globally say AI's benefits outweigh drawbacks (up from 55% in 2024)
52% say AI products make them nervous (2025)
58% of employees globally using AI at work regularly
50point gap: experts (73%) vs public (23%) on AI helping jobs
64% of Americans expect AI to mean fewer jobs in 20 years
31% US trust in own government to regulate AI — lowest surveyed (global avg 54%)
9.1 — Global sentiment: warmer and warier at once
Since 2022, Ipsos's annual AI Monitor has tracked attitudes worldwide. The 2025 wave covered 30 countries and 23,216 adults — and found optimism and anxiety rising together.
The share of respondents who say AI products and services offer more benefits than drawbacks rose from 55% in 2024 to 59% in 2025 — even as the share saying these products make them nervous ticked up to 52%. Across all 30 countries, 79% agreed that companies using AI should be required to disclose that use, and 56% globally believed AI would reduce the time it takes to get things done (78% in China).
Southeast Asia leads the optimism
- In Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, more than 80% of respondents expect AI to profoundly change their lives over the next 3–5 years — consistently the world's most optimistic countries, with Malaysia posting the largest increase from 2024 (+9).
- Several European countries grew more optimistic between 2022 and 2025 — Germany (+12 points), France (+10), China (+9), Great Britain (+5) — though their overall sentiment stayed below much of Asia and Latin America.
- India saw the sharpest rise in AI nervousness of any country surveyed: concern jumped +14 percentage points between 2024 and 2025, with only a modest +2 increase in excitement. Globally, nervousness rose +3 and excitement slipped −1 year over year.
The workplace is where emerging economies pull ahead
A University of Melbourne and KPMG survey of 48,340 people across 47 countries found that in 2025, 58% of employees globally reported using AI at work on a semiregular or regular basis, and 53% said they trust AI for work. But in India, China, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, that usage exceeded 80% — flipping the usual rich-country lead. Personal optimism about AI's benefits appears to coexist with real concern about its effects on labor markets.
9.2 — Experts and the public barely agree
Drawing on Pew Research Center's surveys of US adults and AI experts, plus expert-forecasting panels, Chapter 9 maps one of the report's widest divides — between those who build AI and everyone else.
Across nearly every topic, AI experts are far more optimistic than the US public. The largest gaps cluster around the future of work: 73% of experts expect AI to have a positive impact on how people do their jobs, versus just 23% of the public — a 50-point gap. Similar divides appear for the economy (69% vs. 21%), K–12 education (61% vs. 24%), and medical care (84% vs. 44%). Both groups, though, stay pessimistic about domains tied to trust and social connection — elections, news, and personal relationships.
Jobs: pessimistic public, faster-moving experts
- Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) expect AI to lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, while only 5% expect more.
- Experts are less pessimistic on the net effect (39% expect fewer jobs, 19% more) — but forecast far faster adoption, expecting generative AI to assist 18% of US work hours by 2030 versus the public's estimate of 10%.
- The pattern is consistent: experts and the public diverge most on capability and speed, and converge only where AI touches trust, democracy, and human relationships.
9.3 — Trust, transparency, and who should regulate
As AI embeds in daily life, the mechanisms of trust become more visible. Chapter 9 closes on who people trust to govern AI — and the answer rarely points to one's own government.
Just over half of respondents worldwide (54%) said they trust their government to regulate AI responsibly. The United States reported the lowest trust on this measure of any country surveyed, at 31%. Southeast Asian countries again led — Singapore (81%), Indonesia (76%), Malaysia (73%), and Thailand (70%). Globally, the EU is trusted more than the US or China: across 25 countries in Pew's 2025 survey, a median of 53% said they trust the EU to regulate AI effectively, versus 37% for the United States and 27% for China.
In the US, the worry is too little, not too much
Across all 50 US states, concern about too little AI regulation outweighs concern about too much. Nationally, 41% of respondents said federal AI regulation will not go far enough, compared with 27% who said it will go too far — though more than one-third remain unsure. The appetite for guardrails is broad; confidence that one's own institutions will provide them is not.
The divides beneath the mood
Public opinion on AI isn't one number — it splits by region, expertise, age, and topic. Tap any card for the full trend and its numbers.
Southeast Asia, the optimism belt
Over 80% in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore expect AI to change their lives.
India's sharp turn to nervousness
Concern jumped +14 points in a year — the steepest rise of any country surveyed.
Workplace AI: the global South leads
58% globally use AI at work; over 80% in India, China, Nigeria, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
The 50-point expert–public gap
On jobs, 73% of experts vs 23% of the public expect a positive impact.
Jobs: public dread, expert speed
64% of Americans expect fewer jobs; experts forecast AI assisting 18% of work hours by 2030.
AI companionship, still niche
52% globally feel some excitement vs 42% in the US; experts foresee 30% of US adults daily by 2040.
The chapter in five lines
Headline findings from Chapter 9 · Public Opinion.
AI optimism is rising, but so is anxiety: benefits-outweigh-drawbacks rose from 55% to 59% as nervousness climbed to 52%.
In Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, more than 80% of respondents say AI will profoundly change their lives in the next 3–5 years.
On how people do their jobs, 73% of experts expect a positive impact, compared to just 23% of the public — a 50-point gap.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) expect AI to lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years, while only 5% expect more.
The United States reported the lowest trust in its own government to regulate AI of any country surveyed, at 31% — versus a global average of 54%.
Read the full Public Opinion chapter
Chapter 9 (sections 9.1–9.3) with every figure and citation is free from Stanford HAI. Or head back to the 15 takeaways and nine-chapter overview.
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