Experts and the Public Are Living in Two Different Futures

56% of AI experts expect AI to be good for America over the next 20 years. Only 17% of the public agrees.

Welcome Back,

Ask the people building AI where it's headed, and ask the people using it every day the same question, and you get two noticeably different answers. Pew Research Center did exactly that, surveying 5,410 U.S. adults alongside a separate panel of AI experts, and the resulting gap is one of the more striking findings in AI research this year.

Fully 56% of AI experts surveyed say AI will have a very or somewhat positive impact on the United States over the next 20 years. Among the general public, that number drops to 17%. That's not a small disagreement, it's two groups looking at the same technology and arriving at almost opposite conclusions.

Today we look at where that optimism gap is widest, where experts and the public actually agree, the surprising split within the expert group itself, and what all of this tells us about trust between the people building AI and the people living with it.

📊 The 39-Point Gap

Pew's survey design is what makes this data genuinely useful, it directly compares 5,410 U.S. adults surveyed in August 2024 against a separate sample of AI experts, rather than relying on general public polling alone, according to Pew Research Center.

The headline gap: 56% of experts see AI's overall 20-year impact on the U.S. as positive, versus 17% of the public. On the flip side, 35% of U.S. adults believe AI will negatively affect the country over the next two decades, compared with just 15% of experts. The public was also more likely to say the impact would be a mixed bag, 33% versus 23% of experts, or that they simply weren't sure, 16% versus 6%.

That quote captures something the raw numbers alone don't, expert optimism isn't necessarily hype. It often comes paired with real skepticism about overblown claims, just applied to a different set of expectations than the public holds.

Pew surveyed thousands of U.S. adults alongside a separate panel of AI experts to map this gap directly.

💼 Where the Disagreement Is Sharpest

The starkest differences between experts and the public center on work and the economy. AI experts surveyed are far more likely than the general public to believe that, over the next 20 years, AI will positively affect how people do their jobs, 73% versus 23%, or the broader economy, 69% versus 21%.

Health care shows a similar split, even though it's the one area where the public is most optimistic overall. Experts are still 40 percentage points more likely than the general population to believe AI will positively affect medical care, 84% versus 44%. Experts are also more bullish on K-12 education, 61% versus 24%, and arts and entertainment, 48% versus 20%.

That combination, real hope paired with real doubt, is a useful way to read most of this data. The public isn't simply anti-AI, it's specifically unconvinced that the benefits experts describe will actually reach them.

🗳️ Where They Actually Agree: Elections and News

For all the disagreement elsewhere, there's real common ground on one subject, and it's not a reassuring one. Just 11% of experts surveyed and 9% of the public believe AI will positively impact U.S. elections over the next 20 years. In fact, 61% of experts believe AI will actively harm elections in the future, with 50% of the public saying the same.

News tells a similar story. Only 18% of experts and 10% of the public believe AI will be good for the news people get, while about half or more of both groups, 56% of experts and 51% of the public, predict it will negatively affect it. When the people building AI and the people using it independently arrive at the same worry, that's usually worth taking seriously.

Elections and news are the rare topics where AI experts and the public land on the same worry.

👷 Which Jobs Disappear, According to Whom

Overall, 64% of U.S. adults say AI will lead to fewer jobs in the U.S. over the next 20 years, while just 5% think it will lead to more. Experts are notably more split, 39% foresee fewer jobs, 19% believe it will lead to more, and a third think it won't make much difference.

When it comes to specific occupations, both groups converge sharply on cashiers and factory workers, 73% of both the public and experts expect fewer cashier jobs, and six-in-ten or more from both groups predict the same for factory workers. Journalism shows similar alignment, about six-in-ten of the general public (59%) and experts (60%) expect fewer journalist jobs.

Truck drivers is where the two groups genuinely part ways, experts are far more likely than the public to say AI will lead to fewer truck driving jobs, 62% versus 33%. Lawyers show the opposite pattern, experts are more pessimistic there too, 38% versus 23% of the public, suggesting professional insiders see automation risk in white-collar work that the general public hasn't fully clocked yet.

🚻 A Gender Gap Hiding Inside the Expert Data

One of the more surprising findings sits inside the expert sample itself. Among AI experts surveyed, men are far more likely than women to say AI's overall impact on the country will be positive, 63% versus 36%. Female experts are correspondingly more likely to predict negative outcomes, 23% versus 12% of male experts, or an equal mix of both, 36% versus 19%.

That gap shows up among the general public too, though more modestly, 22% of men versus 12% of women expect a positive impact overall. The pattern holds across both groups, but it's noticeably wider among the very people building the technology, which raises a genuinely interesting question about whose expert judgment gets weighted most heavily inside labs and companies actually shaping AI's rollout.

The gender split among AI experts themselves is wider than the split in the general public.

🧠 AI Spotlight Analysis

The most important number in this whole survey might not be the 56%-versus-17% headline gap, it might be this one: 63% of U.S. adults say AI will never get to a point where they'd trust it to make important personal decisions for them. Just 13% think it will. Experts are far more open to the idea, roughly half think that trust will eventually arrive.

That trust gap is arguably the real story underneath all the other numbers. Optimism about jobs or health care or education is downstream of a more basic question, does this technology deserve your confidence. Right now, most Americans are answering no, and most experts are answering yes, or at least "eventually."

Even that quote, from someone whose own job overlaps with what AI can now do, carries genuine nuance, excited about the technology, honest about the competitive threat it poses. That kind of dual awareness is largely missing from the public's response, which skews toward broader uncertainty and unease rather than this specific, lived-in ambivalence.

🔗 Sources and Further Reading

Thanks for reading AI Spotlight.

Our mission is simple: deliver clear, trustworthy, and actionable AI insights that help professionals stay ahead without the hype.