Nathaniel Whittemore

Feels like we're probably within a few weeks of this closing, so I'm sure we'll get more news soon.

Now, despite the Wall Street Journal writing so glowingly about Claude, U.S.

users clearly remain concerned about the technology overall.

According to a new survey commissioned by Google and conducted by Ipsos, AI users are now in the majority.

66% of respondents said they had used AI in the past 12 months, compared to 48% in the 2024 poll and 28% in 2023.

This was the third year of the longitudinal survey, which was conducted in late September last year, so relatively up to date.

The survey polled around 1,000 adults from each of 21 countries.

Respondents were evenly split when it comes to AI job disruption, with 50% saying AI in the workplace will create jobs and 50% saying it will eliminate jobs.

Still, the majority of survey participants were in favor of fostering advancements using AI at 58%, compared to 41% who wanted to protect industries that might be disrupted by AI.

Not surprisingly, AI optimism was closely tied to AI use.

70% who said they've used AI are optimistic about its benefits.

And of those who use AI a lot, 86% were excited.

There's also a strong correlation between countries with high levels of AI use and high levels of optimism.

The U.S., however, ranked low on both use and optimism.

Just 40% of U.S.

survey participants said they have used AI in the past year, which was the only country without a majority of AI users.

As a point of comparison, the UK was at 56%, Mexico was at 66%, while the UAE, Nigeria, and India were all north of 80%.

Only 33% of US respondents said they were mostly excited about the technology, the worst national result in the survey, and vastly beneath the overall result of 57%.

Now, I actually think this is a major national issue.

The implications are not just the user numbers for OpenAI and Anthropic.