Divided Americans agree on one issue — AI — for the first time, new poll shows
In a period of sharp partisan divides, Americans expressed agreement for the first time about how concerned they are over increasing artificial intelligence (AI) use in day-to-day life, according to two new polls from Pew Research Center.
The surveys, published Nov. 6, also revealed a significant divide between how much Republicans and Democrats trust the United States to regulate the new technology.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the results:
Americans reach a consensus on their level of concern about AI usage
One of the polls, conducted between June 9 and 15, included just over 5,000 respondents and focused on how concerned and/or excited Americans felt about “the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in daily life,” Pew said. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.
Overall, “nearly identical shares of Republicans and Democrats” — 50% and 51%, respectively — reported feeling “more concerned than excited” about increasing AI usage, the report said. “This represents a notable shift from previous years.”
Respondents from the two parties, which included independents who lean Republican or Democratic, have been moving in opposite directions since 2023 to reach a consensus this year, the poll showed.
In 2023, 59% of Republicans reported feeling more concern than excitement about AI usage, a record high since Gallup began asking the question in 2021, per the report. Two years later, that percentage dropped by 9 points, with 50% of Republicans saying the same.
Conversely, in 2023, 46% of Democrats reported feeling more concerned than excited about AI, the poll showed. Two years later, that percentage has increased, with 51% of Democratic respondents saying the same.
The latest poll also showed that both 39% of Democrats and Republicans feel “equally concerned and excited” about AI use in daily activities. The minority of respondents — 11% of Republicans and 10% of Democrats — reported feeling “more excited than concerned” over the issue.
Democrats and Republicans disagree over their level of trust in AI regulation
The other survey was conducted between March 24 to 30 and included about 3,600 respondents who answered questions about how much they trusted the U.S., European Union (EU) and China “to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) effectively,” Pew Research Center said. Its results had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
When asked if they trusted the U.S. to regulate the technology, 54% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents said they had “some” or “a lot” of trust in the country, the poll showed. Only 36% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents said the same with the majority, 56%, saying they had “not too much” trust or “none at all” in the country’s AI regulation.
The results flipped when respondents were asked about their trust in the EU’s AI regulation. The majority of Republicans, 52%, expressed negative views of the EU’s regulatory abilities while the majority of Democrats, 54%, expressed positive views, the survey showed.
Still, the Pew poll found one point of agreement in AI regulation: The majority of Democratic and Republican respondents, 81% and 73%, respectively, said they lacked trust in China to regulate AI technology.
This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Divided Americans agree on one issue — AI — for the first time, new poll shows."
