Only 8% of Americans between 50 and 64 told Pew Research they’re more excited than concerned about AI. That’s the group I’d call the optimists. Which tells you how the rest of the country feels.
Pew has been asking the same question since 2021, back when ChatGPT didn’t exist yet and AI was still mostly a thing that recommended you movies. The question pits excitement against concern. In the latest survey, six years later, Americans are less excited than they’ve ever been and tied for the most concerned they’ve ever been.
The one group moving the other way
Across the full sample, 52% are now more concerned than excited. In 2021, using that identical question, it was 37%.
The finding Pew flags as the standout is what happened to young adults. Among people under 30, 55% now say they’re more concerned than excited. That’s the first time the youngest group has been that gloomy in this survey, though other recent polling of young people has landed in similar territory.
But the 50-to-64 bracket is the one I keep coming back to. It was the only age group where a majority didn’t pick “more concerned than excited.” And their numbers have been sliding down, not up, four surveys running: 59% in 2023, which was the second highest of any group at the time, then 56% in 2024, then 52% in 2025.
Don’t mistake this for enthusiasm
An 8% “more excited than concerned” share is not a group that wants to kiss a chatbot. It’s a group that’s landed on something closer to a shrug. The bulk of them are sitting in the middle option, neither thrilled nor alarmed, while everyone younger and older drifts toward worry.
This bracket mostly overlaps with Generation X, though not cleanly. By my math Gen X runs from 46 to 61, so Pew’s bucket catches a few people on either side of that line.
They’re calmer and more pessimistic at the same time
Here’s the part that doesn’t fit the story you’d expect. Pew notes that among 50- to 64-year-old respondents, 69% said in 2024 that there would be “fewer jobs” over the next 20 years. That number went up in 2026. It’s now 72%.
So the group least likely to say they’re concerned about AI is also, increasingly, the group that thinks AI is going to eat the job market. Those two readings coexist inside the same demographic, in the same polling operation, using the same methodology.
The methodology caveat that matters
Before anyone builds a theory about Gen X mellowing with age, read Pew’s fine print. This isn’t a panel of the same people answering the same questions year after year. There are new recruits each round.
And even if it were the same people, Pew labels respondents by their age at the time they’re surveyed. Someone could have been counted in last year’s 30-to-49 group and this year’s 50-to-64 group. The bucket shifts underneath the trend line.
What the gap is actually worth
Taken as a whole, this group’s answers aren’t wildly different from everyone else’s. The direction of travel is what’s out of step, not the destination. A 52% concern rate in a 52% country is dead average.
What makes it worth a second look is the trajectory. Every other age bracket has been walking toward worry since 2021. This one’s been walking away from it for three straight surveys, while simultaneously telling pollsters the jobs are going to disappear. Calm and fatalistic at once. If you want a single number that captures how weird American opinion on AI has gotten, it’s that 72%.
