Pew Research just published a number that should make anyone building AI products stop and pay attention. For the first time, more than half of American adults under 30, 55 percent, say they are more concerned than excited about AI. Two years ago that number was 39 percent.
The excitement side dropped even harder. Only 11 percent of people under 30 now say they are more excited than concerned, down from 25 percent five years ago. And 73 percent of that same group now expect AI to mean fewer jobs, up from 61 percent just two years back. This is not an older generation grumbling about change they do not understand. This is the group that grew up with the technology, and they are the most nervous about it.
I get why. If you are 22 and watching entry level jobs get harder to find while every company brags about its new AI hires, worry is a reasonable response. Pew surveyed a real cross section of the country in late June, and the trend line only points one way since 2021. Even across every age group combined, 52 percent now say they are more concerned than excited, up from 37 percent five years back, so this is not only a youth phenomenon, just a sharper version of it.
But worry is not the same as opposition. People can be nervous about a technology and still use it every day, still build a career around it, still find real value in it. Concern is usually what shows up right before people start asking better questions and pushing companies to build tools that actually serve them instead of replacing them. A generation paying this much attention to AI, even anxiously, is in a far better spot than one that was not looking at all.
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Sources:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/18/young-adults-in-the-us-are-increasingly-wary-of-ai-concerned-it-will-take-jobs/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/08/18/most-young-americans-are-more-concerned-about-ai-than-excited-pew-survey-finds/
https://www.axios.com/2026/08/18/young-adults-ai-job-loss
Repost this. Thanks.