Gallup: Americans among least optimistic on AI in 37 countries

Positive feelings about artificial intelligence outweigh negative ones in 34 of the 37 countries Gallup has surveyed so far in a new global study, published on Tuesday, September 22. The United States is the outlier among rich countries: only 36% of Americans expect AI to mostly help people in their country, and 74% say it makes them worried, the highest share of any Western high-income country in the sample.

The study was conducted in partnership with Microsoft, which is worth keeping in mind when reading its cheerful headline. The fieldwork ran from April to July 2026, with roughly 1,000 adults aged 15 and over in each country and a plan to reach 140 countries eventually.

What the numbers say

Across the 37 countries, the median share who have ever used AI is 43%; 17% use it daily and 57% never have. Awareness is far ahead of use: a median of 81% have heard of it. The spread is enormous, from Singapore, where 96% are aware, 79% have used it and 46% do so daily, to Malawi, where 12% are aware and 3% have used it.

On whether AI will mostly help or harm people in their country, optimists outnumber pessimists in 29 of the 37 countries, and a majority expect help in 18. The most hopeful are China (93%), Vietnam (91%), Singapore (77%), Israel (69%) and Nigeria (68%). The least are Bangladesh (34%), Egypt and Malawi (35%), the United States (36%) and Afghanistan (37%). Semafor’s summary made the obvious point: the global mood looks very different from the Washington conversation about doom scenarios and data-centre backlash.

Trust lags hope almost everywhere. The global median for trusting AI to give accurate information “completely” or “a lot” is 36%, and majorities trust it in only four countries: Israel, Vietnam, China and Nigeria. In 35 of the 37, more people expect AI to help than trust it to be accurate.

The American paradox

The pattern Gallup flags most is in the rich West. The seven Western high-income countries in the sample have the highest daily use, a median of 29%, and also the highest worry: the United States at 74%, the Netherlands at 67%, Canada at 64%, the United Kingdom at 63%. Inside those countries, though, the people who use AI every day worry less than those who use it rarely. In the United States, 68% of daily users say AI worries them, against 80% of less frequent users; in Canada the gap is 54% to 72%.

Trust in the US tracks use even more sharply: 45% of daily users trust AI’s accuracy, falling to 26% of weekly users, 15% of those who use it less often and 8% of those who never have.

So is exposure the cure for anxiety, or do the anxious simply stay away? Gallup’s data cannot say which way the arrow points, and the report does not claim to. What it does show is that Americans, who live in one of the heaviest-using regions in the study, are the least convinced among rich-country publics that AI will do their country good.

Why the US number matters for the industry

The finding lands within a week of a Pew Research Center study, published on September 17, in which majorities in 34 of 37 countries expect AI to eliminate more jobs than it creates; about 70% of Americans expect job losses over the next 20 years, up seven points since 2024. Two large surveys from different organisations, asking different questions, point the same way: the country that builds most of this technology is among the least persuaded by it.

That matters for the companies involved because the United States is where the arguments over data centres, electricity prices and AI in schools and courts are being had first, and a 36% “mostly help” figure is a weak base from which to ask the public to accept costs now for benefits later. The likelier reading of the usage gap is that familiarity takes the edge off fear without producing trust, since even daily users in the US are split on accuracy.

What to watch is the remaining fieldwork. Gallup intends to cover 140 countries, and the later waves will show whether the gap between the hopeful global South and the wary rich world holds or narrows as use spreads.