Gen Z is souring on AI but keeps using it, Gallup survey finds

Gen Z is growing more disillusioned with artificial intelligence, and sees less and less of a way out. A new Gallup survey records a worrying trend for the industry: among those who grew up with smartphones and social media, AI euphoria is giving way to fatigue and mounting irritation.

The survey was conducted in February and March 2026 among almost 1,600 Americans aged 14 to 29. It is one of the first large-scale attempts to measure not just how young people use AI, but how they feel about it. The results surprised even the authors of the report.

Only 18% of respondents said they feel hopeful about AI, and 22% said it makes them enthusiastic. That is noticeably lower than last year, when sentiment was far more optimistic. Other indicators rose: anxiety, skepticism and a sense that the technology is being forced on them, at school, at work and in everyday life.

The paradox is that disappointment does not lead to abandonment. Most young people admit they keep using AI simply because their environment demands it. Teachers encourage or quietly tolerate the use of ChatGPT for assignments. Employers expect candidates to know how to work with AI tools. Freelancers use AI for speed, because otherwise they cannot withstand the competition. It is a classic trap: they don't like it, but have no alternative.

This sets Gen Z's position fundamentally apart from the experience of earlier generations. Millennials watched social media emerge as something new and exciting, and disillusionment came only later. Zoomers saw that cycle play out already, through other people's example. They enter the AI era with lowered expectations and a sharpened critical instinct. Their skepticism is not a reaction to failure but a preemptive defense.

Context matters too. AI tools are becoming ever more embedded in education and employment, the two areas that directly determine young people's quality of life. When a technology you did not choose becomes a mandatory condition of study or getting a job, it creates a sense of lost control. Those who have already found that AI competes with them in the labor market, or devalues skills they have only just begun to learn, feel this most acutely.

Gallup is not the only organization recording this dynamic. A number of university studies and platform surveys paint a similar picture: young people are not against AI as a concept, but against how it is being introduced, without their involvement, often without explanation, and with unclear consequences for careers and creativity.

For the industry, this means at the very least that young people cannot be assumed to be a loyal audience just because they are digital. Zoomers grew up in the era of algorithmic feeds and dark patterns, and they can tell when a technology works for the company rather than for the user. Forcing AI into education without sound pedagogy, or into hiring without transparency, will only speed up the growth of this distrust.

While the industry reports record investment and new capabilities, the next generation of users is quietly voting with its mood. They are not leaving, but they don't believe, either.