Gallup/Microsoft survey: most countries feel positive about AI, but the US is one of three where worry outweighs it
2026-09-23
A Gallup and Microsoft survey of people in 37 countries (planned to expand to 140) measured AI engagement across awareness, usage, expected impact, trust, and emotional response. A median of 81% were aware of AI tools, but only 43% used them daily. Globally, positive feelings about AI's impact outweighed negative in most countries, and adoption correlated with more positive sentiment and trust — except in the US, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, and Malta, where worry ranked highest; the US was one of only three countries surveyed (with Egypt and Palestine) where negative emotions outweighed positive.
Significance 3: A systematic, multi-country survey on AI trust and sentiment is a meaningful adoption-outcomes data point, though it is self-reported sentiment rather than a capability or market-share result.
Implications · machine-drafted, not owner judgment
A rare piece of systematic cross-country evidence linking trust to usage, and isolating the US as an outlier in AI worry, is a leading indicator for adoption friction in the largest enterprise AI market. Per the owner's Empire/Shalom lens, a Western-specific 'worried' pattern is itself worth watching as a signal of which populations experience AI as extractive versus beneficial — noted plainly as the owner's own filter, not asserted as fact.
- Whether the promised full 140-country dataset shows the same US-outlier pattern
- Whether US sentiment shifts as adoption increases over the next two quarters
Sources
- press Americans Fear AI Will Make the World Worse, Love It Anyway retrieved 2026-09-23