New Findings: Most Americans Aligned on AI’s Positive Impact on the World

TechNet/Morning Consult Study Reveals 77% of U.S. Adults Believe Technology is Needed to Solve Global Problems, Respondents Overwhelmingly Optimistic about AI's Role in Scientific Discovery, Healthcare, and National Security

Washington, D.C. - TechNet, the national, bipartisan network of innovation economy CEOs and senior executives, today announced the results of a new poll conducted with Morning Consult. The survey looked at attitudes across a wide range of AI-related issues, including national security, healthcare, problem-solving, and everyday applications.

"We are grateful for Morning Consult's work with TechNet on this poll," said Linda Moore, President and CEO of TechNet. "There's a lot of speculation around Artificial Intelligence, and we wanted to dig deep with a broad survey to ensure we had fact-based, high-quality data on existing attitudes about AI. We believe these findings shed important light on how Americans see this technology and the opportunities for its use in the years ahead."

Methodology

This survey was conducted between November 21-November 24, 2024, among a sample of 4,005 Americans. The interviews were conducted online, and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Americans based on age, gender, race, educational attainment, region, gender by age, and race by educational attainment. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. Percentages may not equal 100% due to rounding.

Key Findings:

• 77% of Americans believe technology will have a positive impact on the world.
• 62% of Americans believe that AI will have a positive impact on the United States' ability to compete with other countries.
• A majority of Americans (57%) also agree that AI has the potential to strengthen national security.
• By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, Americans believe that AI will have a positive impact on the economy (52% positive impact/27% negative impact)
• Also by a ratio of 2 to 1, Americans believe AI has the potential to help people like them (55% agree/26% disagree).
• 72% of Americans believe that AI will help speed up medical and scientific discovery, shortening the time from breakthroughs to patient interventions.
• Americans see practical use cases for AI, like helping write a wedding toast (56% would be helpful/25% would not) or meal plan for their family (59%/24%).

Read the complete survey results here.