Gallup and Microsoft have published the first results of a joint global survey on attitudes toward AI, covering 37 of a planned 140 countries. In most of those countries, fewer than half of adults have tried AI. Yet among people who know of AI, positive emotions, curiosity above all, prevail over negative ones in all but three of the 37.
The warmest feelings come from China, where 90% report at least one positive emotion, followed by Singapore and Kenya. Asked what AI will do for their country, more than nine in ten people aware of it in China and Vietnam say it will mostly help. The two are also among just four countries, with Israel and Nigeria, where most people trust AI to give accurate answers; across all 37 the median is 36%.
Hope of that kind tracks use only loosely. In Singapore, where 79% of adults have used AI and nearly half use it daily, 77% expect it to benefit the country. In Nigeria, where only 20% have used it, the share is 68%.
The US stands at the other end. Only 36% of Americans aware of AI think it will mostly help the country, and the US is one of the three exceptions to the positive mood, along with Egypt and the State of Palestine.
All seven wealthy Western countries surveyed rank in the top eight for worry. The US leads, at 74% of those who have heard of AI, ahead of the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Malta. A median 29% of adults in these seven use AI daily, well above the 17% in the other 30 countries.
Within the seven Western countries, though, daily users tend to be less worried than occasional users and non-users. In the US, 68% of daily users say AI worries them, compared with 80% of less frequent users. Gallup says the survey cannot tell whether using AI eases worry or whether less anxious people simply use it more.