A survey of 28K+ adults in 25 countries on AI: 81% have heard a lot or a little, 34% are more concerned than excited, and 42% are equally concerned and excited
More are concerned than excited about its use, and more trust their own country and the EU to regulate it than trust the U.S. or China
Context & Ripple Effects
This expands a recent U.S.-only finding that concern outweighed excitement about AI into a 25-country view. It also follows reporting that Americans worry about AI-driven job displacement and energy use, showing that public unease is not limited to a single application.
The notable geopolitical signal is comparative trust: respondents place more confidence in domestic and EU AI oversight than in the U.S. or China. That makes governance credibility, not just AI capability, part of the public-facing competition between technology powers.
First-order effects
- AI developers and policymakers face a public audience that is broadly aware of AI but not broadly enthusiastic, increasing the immediate value of visible safeguards and clear accountability.
- The U.S. and China start from a relative trust disadvantage in this survey, while national regulators and the EU have a stronger stated basis for presenting their rules as legitimate.
Second-order effects
- Companies deploying AI across markets may need to adapt messaging, risk controls, and compliance approaches to national and EU regulatory expectations rather than rely on a single global trust narrative.
- The results strengthen incentives for governments to treat AI governance as a competitive asset: credible domestic rules can help distinguish a country's AI ecosystem from less-trusted alternatives.
Third-order effects
- If these trust gaps persist, AI governance could become more territorially differentiated, with access, deployment terms, and acceptable uses shaped increasingly by national and regional legitimacy concerns.
- This points toward a form of public skepticism about AI's long-term national impact that can constrain adoption even as technical capabilities advance; whether it produces durable regulatory fragmentation depends on whether institutions convert trust into enforceable oversight.
The trend: AI competition is increasingly being judged not only by model capability but by which governments and institutions the public trusts to set the rules.