Young U.S. adults shift sharply against AI amid job-loss fears

Young adults in the United States have undergone a sharp reversal in their attitudes toward artificial intelligence, moving from cautious optimism to active concern in less than three years. The data reveals a generational divergence in how AI is perceived: while the broader population remains skeptical about job creation, young adults under 30 show an even more pronounced shift, with concern now outweighing excitement by a ratio of more than 5 to 1. The jump from 31% concerned in 2021 to 55% today suggests that as AI technologies have moved from laboratory demonstrations to workplace deployment, younger workers have grown increasingly aware of the technology's potential to displace labor. The year-on-year jump in job-loss expectations—from 61% to 73% among under-30s between 2024 and 2025—points to a rapidly hardening consensus among the demographic cohort most likely to enter or navigate the job market during AI's integration into the economy. The finding that only 5% of all U.S. adults expect AI to create jobs, weighed against 71% expecting losses, indicates that the optimistic narrative about AI generating new work has largely failed to take hold in public perception.