October 8, 2026
Americans are wary of the pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development in the U.S., and large majorities in both parties want the government to prioritize keeping AI under human control. Ahead of the midterm election, few are using AI to find election-related information.
Sixty-four percent of adults, including 76% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans, believe that AI technology in the U.S. is developing too quickly, while just 8% say it is developing too slowly. A quarter think it is moving at about the right pace.
There is bipartisan agreement on some aspects of AI policy objectives, but sharp partisan differences on others. Similar shares of Democrats and Republicans say that keeping AI under human control, protecting U.S. workers, and promoting technological innovation should be extremely or very important priorities in the U.S. government’s approach to AI. Views diverge more on whether the U.S. government should prioritize minimizing environmental harm and competition with other countries.
Confidence in politicians’ ability to handle AI is limited. Thirty-one percent of adults approve of how President Trump is dealing with AI. Twenty-three percent trust the Democratic Party to do a better job handling AI than the Republican Party, while 21% trust the Republican Party more. Thirty-nine percent say neither party can be trusted to do a good job.
Few adults are using AI as a source of information for the upcoming election. Twenty-one percent have used or plan to use AI to learn about a candidate or an issue on the ballot. Even fewer say they have used or plan to use AI to find information about how to vote (12%), how to register to vote (10%), or to decide who to vote for (10%).
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The nationwide poll was conducted September 24-28, 2026, using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 2,140 adults. The overall margin of sampling error is +/-2.9 percentage points.