Half of adult Americans use AI chatbots, with a quarter using them daily, according to new polling from Pew Research released Wednesday. That’s up from 33% of Americans who used AI chatbots in the summer of 2024. But a small minority, 16%, believe AI will have a positive impact on society.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the most popular chatbot in the U.S., with 44% of Americans reporting use of the AI tool. When Pew surveyed Americans last year, 34% said they used ChatGPT.
The second-most popular chatbot is Google’s Gemini (24%), with other chatbots trailing: Microsoft Copilot (17%), Meta AI (14%), xAI’s Grok (8%), Anthropic’s Claude (6%), and Character.ai (3%).
Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults say they don’t use AI chatbots at all, while 25 percent say they use them “several times a week or less.” Twenty-four percent of respondents say they use chatbots daily, including 8 percent who use them about once per day, 12 percent who use them several times per day, and 4 percent who use them “almost constantly,” according to Pew.
The use of AI chatbots depends largely on age. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 66% use AI, with the percentages getting lower among each older age group: 30- to 49-year-olds (61%), 50-to 64-year-olds (42%), and 65+ (23%).
Pew notes that while younger Americans are using AI the most, they’re not viewing AI more positively. In fact, those aged 18-29 were the most skeptical, with 48% saying AI will have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years and 37% saying it will have a negative impact on them personally. Compare that with 30- to 49-year-olds, with 39% who say AI will have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years, and 30% who believe it will have a negative impact on them personally.
Those over 50 years old were the least skeptical of AI, with 37% saying AI will have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years and 28% saying it will have a negative impact on them personally. And it’s not hard to understand why this discrepancy may exist. All you need to do is look at the recent college graduation ceremonies where young people booed commencement speakers who praised AI, largely because they’ve been told AI will take their jobs.
Those 50+ aren’t staring down a job market where they have to battle not just AI for entry-level positions, but an application process flooded with fake job listings and AI-generated applications or interviews.
Those with the highest incomes were the most likely to use AI, with 66% of those in the upper-income bracket telling Pew they use chatbots, 49% of those in the middle-income category saying the same, and just 41% of those in the lower-income category responding similarly.
What are people using AI for? Forty-two percent say they use it to search for information, suggesting the most popular use case for AI has been a search engine replacement. The second most common response was “for tasks at work,” with 38% of employed adults saying they use AI at their jobs.
While many businesses have adopted AI tools and some are really pushing their employees to use them, there is concern over how they’re being used. Sharing proprietary or sensitive information with AI systems can be a problem for some businesses, and research suggests workers sometimes use unauthorized AI tools despite warnings against doing just that.
Just 25% of those surveyed by Pew said they use AI for fun or entertainment, and 24% say they use it to create or edit images and videos. Twenty percent use AI for medical advice, and 20% also say they get diet and fitness information. Thirteen percent use AI “to get news,” though it’s unclear what that means exactly. Ten percent use AI “for emotional support or advice” and 4% say they use AI for companionship.
Among those who use AI, it’s no surprise that many believe it helps their productivity. Thirty percent of Americans believe AI helps their productivity, with 5% saying it hurts. Fourteen percent believe it neither helps nor hurts. American adults are more skeptical when it comes to how AI might be impacting their happiness and relationships. Just 8% believe it helps their happiness, with 5% saying it hurts their happiness. Thirty-six percent believe it neither hurts nor helps. The polling for whether it helps their relationships was nearly identical.
Americans are also skeptical of how AI will impact their own information security. Seventy-one percent believe that AI will make their own personal information less secure, with 10% saying it will not make much difference, and just 3% saying AI will make it more secure.
When you look at the racial breakdown of AI chatbot usage, Asian-Americans were the most prolific users, with 70% using them several times a week or less, and 47% using them daily. White Americans were the least likely to use AI chatbots overall (46%), with 20% using them daily. Compare that to Hispanic (49% overall, 26% daily) and Black Americans (49% overall, 24% daily).
When it comes to how the U.S. government may play a role in the emergence of AI, 67% of American adults say they have little to no confidence in their elected leaders to regulate the technology. Fifty-nine percent say they’re not confident in companies developing and deploying AI responsibly.
Politically, majorities of both Democrats and Republicans have little confidence in the government’s ability to regulate AI effectively, but those on the left are the most skeptical. Seventy-four percent of Democrats don’t believe the U.S. government will regulate AI effectively, while 61% of Republicans say the same thing. Republicans were more skeptical of government under President Joe Biden, with 70% of Republicans in 2024 saying they didn’t believe the government could regulate AI effectively two years ago.
As for the reasons that people chose not to use AI chatbots, 83% say they’re just not interested, 79% say they’re concerned about how their personal information will be used, 76% say they don’t trust they’ll get accurate information, and 55% say they don’t know how to use them. Fourteen percent think that others will judge them for using AI.
The survey was conducted Feb. 17-23 and asked 5,119 American adults about their AI usage, according to Pew.
