What Americans want AI companies to know: 13 key themes based on 1K+ conversations

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has people around the United States bracing for an unknown future, an uncertainty that has coupled increased adoption with increasing scrutiny.

To find out what the public really thinks about AI, YouGov deployed the technology powering BrandIndex Voices to interview 1,100+ U.S. adults.

The prompt

Imagine you had the chance to speak directly to the leaders of the world’s biggest AI companies... What would you want to say to them about AI?

YouGov asked Americans what they want AI companies to know, revealing a population conflicted with what exactly they may be giving up in exchange for productivity.

The AI interviewer and analyzer uncovered that, Americans see AI as useful and exciting, but they want it kept safe, transparent and firmly under human control.

The research uncovered 13 themes that the U.S. public wants AI companies to know. View direct interview quotes pertaining to each one below:

Jump directly to each theme by clicking the links below, or scroll to continue reading.

1. Everyday use and adoption
2. Information integrity and bias
3. Social impact and capabilities
4. Corporate responsibility and trust
5. Misuse and harm prevention
6. Human roles and primacy
7. Long term existential risk
8. Work and economic change
9. Governance, regulation and power
10. Privacy, data and surveillance
11. Health, science and wellbeing
12. Environmental and community impact
13. Creativity, art and IP

What Americans really think about AI

The overall message is not anti-AI. It is a demand for AI that helps without taking over, and that earns trust through proof rather than hype.

Americans are open to using it more if it stays optional, transparent, and accountable to the public, rather than to market pressure alone.

1) Everyday use and adoption

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about AI as a practical helper in daily life and work, focusing on its utility, accessibility and how user experience and interface design shape trust, habits and willingness to adopt or avoid it.
• Human analysis: Nearly two-thirds of respondents mentioned the ability of AI to support everyday activities (63%), the most frequent topic surfaced throughout the interviews. With only two of the 13 themes generating sentiment scores higher than 6.0, the fact that this theme was positive (6.6 engagement) and the most mentioned suggests it’s the primary benefit that Americans who use AI view as a worthwhile tradeoff for what they otherwise seem to see as downsides.
• “I really enjoy using AI, whether it’s the Amazon Echo to make shopping lists and play music, ChatGPT to figure out how to talk about drugs with someone or to translate a confusing medical report, Claude when my daughter went to the ER and I didn’t know how to help her,” said a U.S. woman aged 55+.
  

2) Information integrity and bias

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about AI systems’ role in producing and distributing information, including concerns about accuracy, verifiability, bias, synthetic media and how outputs should be labeled and contextualized to support trustworthy information ecosystems.
• Human analysis: The second most-mentioned topic, “information integrity and bias” combines a relatively negative sentiment (3.5 of 10) with the second-highest engagement (7.4 of 10), suggesting a big issue that matters greatly to many respondents. If the topic had a low sentiment with a low engagement, it would be a nuisance, but less of priority to address. AI companies that promise to help with everyday tasks may offset users’ time savings by creating additional work through perceived fact-checking and disclosure obligations.
• “Responsible and transparent development means companies clearly explain how AI works, what data it uses, and how decisions are made. Users should have control over their data and know when they’re interacting with AI,” said a U.S. man aged 35-44.
  

3) Social impact and capabilities

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about how AI affects social relationships, emotional life and human skills, including its use in companionship and mental health, changes in face to face interaction and concerns about overreliance and reduced autonomy or competence.
• Human analysis: Another topic with a low sentiment (3.7), “Social impact and capabilities” manages to attract slightly more positivity than information integrity. However, with a very high engagement score (7.7), it is among the highest emotional triggers for Americans. The theme’s impact centers around whether AI can augment interpersonal relationships, rather than replace them, with most detractors concerned about the latter.
• “I have been using Gemini as a kind of therapy in the wake of my wife's death last December. Also discussing poetry, movies and various other things. I have been very pleasantly surprised with Gemini's breadth of knowledge and personality,” said a U.S. man aged 55+.
  

4) Corporate responsibility and trust

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about the intentions and ethics of AI developers, including concerns about profit motives, transparency and the need for companies and leaders to clearly explain capabilities, limitations and impacts to the public.
• Human analysis: Nearly a third of respondents (32%) discussed with YouGov's AI interview the importacnte of corporate responsibility, another oft-mentioned, negative topic, clocking a 3.3 sentiment score out of 10. While more Americans overall cited a lack of trust in the information provided by AI, those who explicitly mentioned the companies behind AI tools displayed a similar level of distrust, suggesting the need for AI companies to regrow trust across their outputs, brands, and the industry at-large.
• “AI needs strict government and global watchdog regulations. There needs to be clear guidelines about what can and cannot be developed. The companies owning AI should have no involvement because I do not trust them to make decisions not influenced by profits.” said a U.S. woman aged 25-34.

5) Misuse and harm prevention

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about preventing AI from enabling self harm, violence, criminal activity or other security threats, and the need for guardrails that control access and behavior to protect vulnerable users and the wider public.
• Human analysis: While mentioned fewer times overall, more Americans interviewed cited concerns about AI misuse and harms than did social impact. This suggests a somewhat widespread belief that bad actors could leverage AI against the public. With a 7.5 of 10 engagement and just 3.1 of 10 sentiment, this the most emotionally-charged topic surfaced throughout YouGov’s interviews, reflecting a deep fear and respect of the technology’s purported power. The topic’s frequency in conversations, combined with its perceived importance make it a major issue to address, actions which could support improvement across other common themes like corporate responsibility and social impact.
• “You have an immense responsibility for adhering to ethical standards regarding the age and vulnerability of people you are interacting with. This includes protecting the safety of minor children who consult with your AI agents and not providing deceptive or inaccurate responses,” said a U.S. woman aged 55+.
  

6) Human roles and primacy

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations emphasizing the boundaries of AI decision making and the need for humans to retain ultimate authority and dignity, especially in high stakes areas such as medicine, education, warfare and life changing decisions.
• Human analysis: A near-neutral topic with a slight negative lean (4.2 sentiment out of 10), Americans communicated the importance of keeping a human involved throughout AI-related decision-making. This oversight could address some of the perceived shortcomings of AI, such as information integrity and bias,
• “Because tools extend human capability without taking away human judgment, while a replacement can remove accountability, context, and the values people bring to decisions. Keeping AI as a tool helps ensure humans stay in control of outcomes, especially in complex or high-stakes situations,” said a U.S. man aged 25-34.
  

7) Long term existential risk

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about advanced AI potentially escaping or undermining human control, changing power dynamics, being weaponized or causing large scale or existential harms to societies or humanity as a whole.
• Human analysis: One in five Americans interviewed (20%) expressed fears of long term existential risk exacerbated by AI technology. Unsurprisingly, this topic registered the lowest sentiment (2.5 out of 10) of any measured. With 1,184 interviews conducted and 1,383 mentions of the topic, the existential effects of AI weighed heavily in conversations for those who chose to discuss it, covering nearly six touches of the maximum of 12-turn conversation.
• “The reality of wide spread AI adoption may and probably will have a bigger impact on human society than the Industrial Revolution, Nuclear power, and the internet combined,” said a U.S. man aged 55+.
  

8) Work and economic change

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about how AI and automation transform jobs, skills, industries and income distribution, including concerns about job loss, new opportunities, and expectations for adaptation and social protections.
• Human analysis: Discussed in interviews by nearly a third of Americans (29%), the impact of artificial intelligence on the job market and the subsequent ramifications on the broader economy remains a common cause for concern. Scoring a sentiment of 3.3 out of 10, conversations around job security imparted pessimism, though they do not deviate far from other negative themes in sentiment or emotion. What differentiates the economic impacts of AI from other themes, however, is the higher percentage of people who mentioned it, suggesting that many people thought it was worth bringing up, but didn’t have much more to say beyond that it was a concern.
• “Society as a whole depends on everyone being able to have a way to sustain themselves. A job is a way for people to sustain themselves but by replacing jobs with ai negativly affects society as a whole,” said a U.S. man aged 45-54.

9) Governance, regulation and power

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about the societal rules and power structures that shape AI development and deployment, including the roles of governments, independent oversight and corporate actors in setting limits and being held accountable for impacts.
• Human analysis: Just 19% of Americans discussed the concept of AI governance with YouGov’s AI interviewer, whether via law, corporate responsibility initiatives, independent oversight boards or another approach. While low, the sentiment around AI governance was closer to neutral (3.8 out of 10) than many other AI-related themes surfaced in the interview. This follows a 2023 survey YouGov conducted finding that AI followed only pharmaceuticals as the industry most-preferred have more regulations.
• “I believe in AI. I've seen the uses in medicine and diagnostics. In logic and reason. But I also know that AI is growing at a rate that it will start writing its own code -- it's doing that even now. I don't want the likes of Elon Musk and Altman determining how my government should act. How my life should be. That's for me to decide and we, as society, need to determine that now,” said a U.S. woman aged 55+.
  

10) Privacy, data and surveillance

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about how AI technologies collect, process and share personal data, and related risks of surveillance, exploitation, and security breaches alongside expectations for strong user control and legal safeguards.
• Human analysis: Hardly unique to artificial intelligence, the topic of privacy and data use appeared in 21% of conversations, clocking an engagement score of 7.1 and sentiment score of 3.2. Like many of the topics on this list, Americans feel quite negative about the intersection of AI and privacy. It’s neither the most important nor most urgent theme surfaced by the analysis, but it impacts public perceptions.
• “I’d like more control over how my data is used, including the ability to opt out of training and have data deleted easily. I also want transparency settings so I can see why an AI gave a certain answer or recommendation. It would help to adjust how “autonomous” the AI is—like choosing when it should suggest vs. act. Finally, clearer customization options so I can set boundaries on topics, tone, and what the AI is allowed to retain about me,” said a U.S. man aged 35-44.

11) Health, science and wellbeing

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about AI in medicine, healthcare and scientific research, including its role in diagnosis, treatment, hazardous work, mental and physical health and how it should be integrated into life critical contexts.
• Human analysis: The other major AI theme with a positive spin (in addition to everday uses), 18% of U.S. adults communicated optimism around how AI could impact society across health, science and wellbeing. This theme notably had the highest positive emotion of any of the 13 on this list, securiting a sentiment score of 6.6 out of 10. While the engagement around this topic was also positive (6.3 out of 10), it scored lower than every other topic mentioned, suggesting that, while American adults recognize the possible benefits about AI technology, their anxieties and fears could be overpowering their hopes.
• “Soon we won’t need general practitioners we will be able to do a virtual visit and get diagnosed and prescribed medication ordered and delivered without leaving the house. The AI will have far more information than a human and be able to decipher our medical records,history and condition and concerns instantly,” said a U.S. woman aged 55+.

12) Environmental and community impact

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about the environmental and local community effects of AI infrastructure, including energy and water use, resource demands and how associated costs and burdens are distributed.
• Human analysis: A major public criticism of artificial intelligence, only 12% of Americans interviewed brought up AI's environmental and community impact in their interviews, the second-lowest of any theme. Though mentioned less often than other topics, those who raised environmental concerns considered it among their most important issues. Sentiment toward AI’s impact on the environment was very negative (2.9 out of 10), and engagement was high (7.3 out of 10). While most Americans may not immediately think about sustainability when confronting the potential downsides of artificial intelligence, those who do have very strong convictions. It may be the case that the elevation of this concern in the public discourse is the result of a passionate, vocal minority.
• “Big tech companies are abandoning their climate pledges in order to build AI data centers,” said a U.S. man aged 25-34.
  

13) Creativity, art and IP

• AI-generated topic description: Conversations about AI in creative and cultural domains, addressing its role as a tool, the value of human originality and authorship and how training and outputs relate to the rights and recognition of human creators.
• Human analysis: Last and least mentioned, intellectual property rights arguments around AI have high engagement (7.3 out of 10) and somewhat low sentiment (3.8 out of 10). This appears less concerning to Americans than Brits, who scored a similar topic most engaging and with the lowest sentiment. While AI’s impact on creativity, art and IP remains a big issue for some Americans, the data suggests that more are concerned about concerns around job security and potential for harm.
• “Humanity creates art for a purpose and reason, experienced by both the artist and the person experiencing the art. Someone feeding a prompt to an AI isn't creating it; they are guiding the creation by a separate entity. Additionally, the poor quality of AI art and inherent replicability and sameness of it lead to it being less valuable,” said a U.S. woman aged 25-34.

Understanding the interview methodology

Members of YouGov’s consumer research panel of 8+ million adults in the United States completed conversations with the AI interviewer between April 15 and April 30, 2026. Each interview started with this prompt:

<sub>Hello, I am YouGov's AI-interviewer! YouGov is publishing a study about public attitudes towards AI, and we'd like to hear from you!

Imagine you had the chance to speak directly to the leaders of the world’s biggest AI companies... What would you want to say to them about AI?

You might like to think about how you feel about AI, what you would like AI to do for you, your experiences using it, or your hopes and concerns for the future.</sub>

Conversations lasted no longer than 12 questions. The AI interviewer adapted each respondent’s follow-up questions based on their individual answers, meaning each conversation was unique, outside of the opening prompt.

Because YouGov manages this process end-to-end, quotes and analyses are quickly traceable back to their original transcripts.