Matt O’Brien and Linley Sanders
Most US adults say they use artificial intelligence to search for information, but few people use it for work, email, draft or shop.
Young adults are most likely to lean on AI, and many use it for brainstorming and working tasks.
New findings from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll show that 60% of Americans, and 74% of Americans under the age of 30, use AI to find at least some information.
Polls highlight the ubiquity of AI in some regions and limitations in other areas. Only four in 10 Americans say they used AI to come up with work tasks and ideas. This shows that the promise of the technology industry of highly productive AI assistants has not touched most of their livelihoods after years of promotion and investment.
At the same time, broader adoption of AI by young Americans shows that it could change.
There is a particularly large age gap in brainstorming. Approximately six in 10 adults under the age of 30 use AI to come up with ideas, but only two in 10 people over the age of 60. Young adults are also more likely to use AI to come up with ideas at least “everyday.”
Audiologist Courtney Sayer is sitting at her desk in her office in West Des Moines, Iowa on Monday, July 28th, 2025. A new AP-NORC poll says that most Americans used artificial intelligence to search for information, according to a new poll highlighting the ubiquitous nature of technology. However, the most people use for brainstorming and work assignments are young adults who seem to be bringing the most people towards AI. (AP Photo/Charlie Neighborgor)
Audiologist Courtney Sayer is sitting at her desk in her office in West Des Moines, Iowa on Monday, July 28th, 2025. A new AP-NORC poll says that most Americans used artificial intelligence to search for information, according to a new poll highlighting the ubiquitous nature of technology. However, the most people use for brainstorming and work assignments are young adults who seem to be bringing the most people towards AI. (AP Photo/Charlie Neighborgor)
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Audiologist Courtney Sayer is sitting at her desk in her office in West Des Moines, Iowa on Monday, July 28th, 2025. A new AP-NORC poll says that most Americans used artificial intelligence to search for information, according to a new poll highlighting the ubiquitous nature of technology. However, the most people use for brainstorming and work assignments are young adults who seem to be bringing the most people towards AI. (AP Photo/Charlie Neighborgor)
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Young adults are most likely to use AI
Bridge generations are people like 34-year-old Courtney Sayer who embraces AI in some parts of her life and avoids it in others.
Sayer said she regularly uses ChatGpt to come up with ideas about planning what she should eat, but she will calculate the nutritional value of the pumpkin banana-aut bread she has been grilling for years.
“We’ve been working hard to get into the world,” said Sayer of Des Moines, Iowa. “It wasn’t the most flavorful thing I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s a great step-in. More importantly, I use it in quantity and don’t overserve myself, making it a waste of food.”
This is because audiologists not only seep in AI technology into hearing aids that recommend AI to patients, but also make drafting professional emails easier and faster.
She avoids it for important information, especially medical advice, after witnessing her “hatography” of misinformation on topics she has been studying for years.
About four in ten Americans say they use AI for work tasks at least sometimes, but according to the vote, about a third say they use it for email creation, image creation, editing, or entertainment. About a quarter says they use it for shopping.
Young adults are more likely to say they used artificial intelligence to assist with a variety of tasks, polls show.
Searching for information is the most common use of AI
Of the eight options offered in poll questions, searching for information is the most common way Americans interact with AI. And it doesn’t always reveal how AI is surfaced with information it is watching online, so even that might be.
For over a year, Google, a dominant search engine, automatically provides AI-generated responses to people’s search queries, appearing at the top of the results.
Perhaps 28-year-old Sanaa Wilson, who is against the new trends in media consumption, usually skips beyond the summaries generated by those AI.
“It should be a basic question like, ‘What day will Christmas land in 2025?’,” said a Los Angeles area resident. “I’m going to be like, ‘That makes sense.’ I trust that. “But once you’ve reached certain news in relation to what’s going on in California, the education system and what’s going on about that kind of thing, scroll down a little further. ”
A freelance data scientist, Wilson uses AI heavily in the workplace to help with coding. She also uses it to come up with work-related ideas. This is an attempt to regain a bit of a co-brainstorming experience I remember from college but don’t have now.
When it first came out, Wilson also said she also used ChatGpt to help her write emails, until she learned more about its environmental impact and the potential that it could erode her writing and thinking skills over time.
“It’s just an email. I can solve it,” she said. “No matter how many minutes it takes, it takes a few seconds, but you can still type it yourself.”
Most people don’t use AI for dating, but it’s more common for younger adults
The least common thing used by the eight AIs was AI dating, but even that showed age gaps.
Ten of all adults were under 2 years old, and about a quarter of those under 30 said they used AI in their relationship.
Wilson is not interested in her AI peers, but she is not surprised that others will do so due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on her generation’s social experiences.
“I fully understand and sympathize with the reasons why people in my age group are using it that way,” Wilson said.
Audiologist Sayer is also not interested in AI dating, but tries to be polite with a chatbot in case they are tracking it down.
“I mean, just because I saw the movie, I’m kind to it, right?” Sayer said with a laugh. “So I’m going to say, ‘Can you make a meal plan?’ And then I say, “Could you change this?” and then I say, “Thank you.” ”
The AP-NORC vote for 1,437 adults was conducted from July 10-14 using samples drawn from Norc’s probability-based Amerispeak panel designed to represent the US population. The margin for sampling errors across adults is either positive or negative 3.6 percentage points.
Original issue: July 29, 2025, 11:34am EDT
