Sydney Gill, a 19-year-old student at Rice University in Houston, is thinking about the same thing that has been following her everywhere lately as she scrolls through job postings on her laptop in a lecture hall. In high school, she had high hopes for AI. Choosing a college major has now caused the optimism to turn into something more akin to anxiety. “I feel like anything that I’m interested in has the potential of maybe getting replaced,” she stated, “even in the next few years.”
Her conflicted feelings are not unusual. A recent Gallup poll claims that it is essentially the defining emotional stance of a whole generation.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Report Name | “The AI Paradox” — Voices of Gen Z study |
| Published By | Gallup, Walton Family Foundation, GSV Ventures |
| Survey Date | February 24 – March 4, 2026 |
| Sample Size | 1,572 Gen Z individuals ages 14–29 |
| Gen Z Definition | Born 1997–2012; currently ages 14–29 |
| Weekly AI Usage | 51% use generative AI at least weekly (unchanged from 2025) |
| Daily AI Usage | 22% use AI daily |
| Excitement Decline | Down 14 percentage points to 22% |
| Hopefulness Decline | Down 9 percentage points to 18% |
| Anger Increase | Up 9 percentage points to 31% |
| Anxiety | 42% (steady from 2025) |
| Curiosity | 49% — most commonly reported emotion |
| Learning Concern | 80% believe AI will make learning more difficult in the future |
| Cognitive Doubt | 46% believe AI helps them learn faster (down from 53% in 2025) |
| Workplace Risk Concern | 48% of employed Gen Z say risks outweigh benefits (up from 37% in 2025) |
| Human Work Trust | 69% trust work produced by humans; only 28% trust AI-assisted work |
| AI Idea Generation | Only 31% believe AI helps them come up with new ideas (down from 42%) |
| School AI Policies | 74% of K-12 students report school has AI rules (up from 51% in 2025) |
| Lead Researcher | Zach Hrynowski, Senior Education Researcher, Gallup |
More than 1,500 Americans between the ages of 14 and 29 participated in the survey, which was published in April 2026 by Gallup in collaboration with the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures. The headline statistic, which states that 51% of Gen Z uses generative AI at least once a week, is unchanged from 2025. Nothing is growing. No retreat. a plateau. However, the emotional picture beneath that steady usage figure has changed in ways that should make the biggest proponents of the technology take notice.
Over the previous year, enthusiasm for AI fell 14 percentage points to 22%. Hopefulness dropped nine points to eighteen percent. Anger increased to 31%, a nine-point increase. Anxiety predominated in 2025, with a counterbalance of excitement and hope. That counterweight has essentially crumbled in 2026. Curiosity is currently the most prevalent emotion (49 percent), which seems almost neutral until you consider that anxiety (42 percent) and anger (31 percent) rank second and third, respectively. It doesn’t exactly fit the description of a generation eagerly racing toward a future mediated by AI.
Where the shift is occurring is what makes the data so striking. Even regular AI users, who are the most familiar and involved group, have shown quantifiable declines in positivity. Over the course of the year, their enthusiasm decreased by eighteen points. Their optimism dropped by 11 points. These individuals use ChatGPT or a comparable program on a daily basis, but they are becoming less certain that it is beneficial to them.
The pattern, according to Gallup senior education researcher Zach Hrynowski, is a generation that recognizes necessity but resists enthusiasm. They’re not giving up. They feel compelled to stay. Young people’s comments during interviews perfectly capture it: they see requirements to be at ease with ChatGPT or Gemini when they look at job listings. They read headlines about the professions most vulnerable to automation when they are trying to decide what to major in. They still carry its number on their phone even though the tool that was meant to be a useful assistant has begun to feel like a rival.
The skepticism’s learning component is especially acute. Eighty percent of Gen Z think that learning will become harder rather than easier in the future due to the use of AI tools. In just one year, the percentage of people who believe AI speeds up learning dropped from 53 to 46. Just 31% of respondents think AI helps them generate new ideas, compared to 42% the year before. Those who have chosen to reject the technology do not hold these opinions. These are the opinions of those who use it frequently and are becoming more concerned about the effects it is having on their brains.
As these figures mount, there’s a sense that the gap between how young people perceive AI and how it’s being marketed to them—as a productivity booster, a competitive necessity, or a skill to master—has been widening for some time, and someone has finally asked the right questions to bring it to light. It turns out that the generation that was meant to be AI’s most natural constituency is actually its most conflicted. I’m still using it. Still intrigued. simply no longer believing the narrative.
