Younger adults are usually the early adopters and optimists when a new technology arrives, while older generations hang back and worry. A new Pew Research Center survey shows that pattern breaking down around artificial intelligence. Adults under 30 are now the age group most likely to say they’re more concerned than excited about AI, a reversal from a few years ago, when older Americans consistently reported the highest anxiety.
Pew surveyed 3,488 U.S. adults between June 22 and 28, 2026, asking a question it has tracked since 2021: are you more excited or more concerned about AI’s growing role in daily life? Overall, 52% now say more concerned, up from 37% in 2021. Among adults under 30, that figure hit 55%, the first time this group has crossed the halfway mark. Concern kept rising for this cohort through 2026, while for everyone 30 and older, most of the increase happened earlier, between 2021 and 2023, and has since leveled off. All age groups are now converging around similar concern levels, a pattern that didn’t exist in prior years.
Job security is driving much of it. Seventy one percent of respondents now believe AI will mean fewer jobs within 20 years, up from 64% in 2024. Among adults under 30, that number jumped from 61% to 73% over the same span, the steepest rise Pew measured in any group.
The reversal matters because it breaks the usual logic of technology adoption, a shift also picked up in Forbes’ coverage of the survey. Younger adults typically embrace new tools fastest because they have less invested in the systems being disrupted. AI concern doesn’t follow that pattern, because the people most exposed to its effect on entry-level hiring are the ones trying to start careers right now. Companies that have spent years pitching younger consumers as AI’s natural audience, the generation that will adopt AI-native products by default, are marketing to the cohort now most likely to distrust that pitch.
One correction is worth noting. Some coverage has framed Americans aged 50 to 61 as uniquely unbothered by AI, based on an older Pew bracket where concern had been declining, from 59% in 2023 to 52% in 2025. That’s no longer accurate. The newest data shows that group has converged with everyone else, which means the real story isn’t middle-aged comfort with AI. It’s that young adults’ anxiety became the new baseline everyone else caught up to.
