The generation expected to make artificial intelligence ordinary is increasingly uneasy about what it will cost. Young Americans may be AI’s most familiar users, but they are now its most skeptical constituency.

Pew Research Center’s latest survey, conducted June 22-28 among 3,488 U.S. adults, marks a sharp turn from the optimism that greeted consumer AI tools. Fifty-five percent of people under 30 say they are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life — a 24-point rise since 2021 — while only about one in 10 are more excited than worried.¹

That retreat is particularly striking because younger adults have been the country’s most active users of chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. Companies have treated that fluency as a hiring advantage: Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman argued in March that recent graduates “learned how to program with AI” and are “so much more AI native.”² The survey suggests familiarity has not translated into faith.

Jobs are at the center of the backlash. Seventy-three percent of adults under 30 expect AI to take away jobs over the next two decades, up from 61% in 2024; nationally, 71% now foresee fewer jobs. Yet the evidence is messier than the anxiety: research has found AI-driven job losses less common than public fears suggest, even as companies including Oracle, Cisco, IBM and Uber have cited AI as a factor in layoffs.¹

The souring is not confined to young people. Concern outweighs excitement across every age group, reinforcing what one account called a national “revulsion toward artificial intelligence.”³ But under-30s stand out for believing AI will damage society, personal well-being, connection and creativity — a warning that the industry’s presumed AI-native workforce may be harder to win over than executives expected.²