Most People Around the World Fear AI Will Kill Their Jobs, a New Survey Finds
A Pew Research poll of more than 42,000 people across 37 countries finds widespread worry that artificial intelligence will reshape work and widen inequality, even among people who have never used an AI tool.
Key points - A Pew Research Center survey of 42,151 adults across 37 countries, conducted February 8 to May 13 2026, found a majority believe AI will reduce the number of available jobs. - Concern about AI widening income inequality ranked above concern about any single job category in almost every country surveyed. - Worry crossed education levels: professional and college-educated respondents also expressed concern about their own roles. - The survey predates the most recent wave of warnings from AI developers about near-term automation, so public anxiety has probably grown since fieldwork closed.
What's new isn't the worry itself. It's the scale at which people across vastly different economies and wage levels are pointing at the same culprit.
Pew Research Center questioned 42,151 adults in 37 countries between February 8 and May 13 2026, and a clear majority believe artificial intelligence, the technology behind tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, will shrink the number of jobs available to ordinary people. The Verge AI reported the survey first.
What exactly are people afraid of?
Job loss is the headline fear, but it isn't the only one. Respondents ranked AI-driven income inequality, the idea that gains from automation will flow to owners and shareholders rather than workers, at least as high as outright job cuts.
That distinction matters. Keeping a job while watching its pay and conditions erode is a quieter problem than losing one outright, and the survey suggests people grasp the difference. Professional workers expressed worry about their own positions, a finding consistent with our 24 August story on Stanford research showing workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed fields are now 19 percent behind their peers, and with what AI2Day has tracked across workers in data centers and young people leaving desk careers for trades.
Should people outside the United States pay attention?
Yes, and the survey is unusual precisely because it reached them. Most AI polling focuses on American or Western European respondents. This one covered 37 countries, including lower-income nations where workers have far less of a safety net if automation disrupts their industries.
Fear wasn't a rich-country phenomenon. AI2Day first covered the question of AI's uneven global impact on 29 July; Pew has now put hard numbers behind it.
| Concern | Who felt it most |
|---|---|
| AI will reduce total jobs | Majority in most of 37 countries |
| AI will worsen inequality | Ranked top concern in almost every country |
| Professional roles at risk | College-educated respondents included |
| Survey fieldwork period | Feb 8 to May 13, 2026 |
My plain read: this survey is more useful than most because it asks ordinary people rather than experts, and does so globally. The inequality finding is the one to watch. Debates about which jobs survive tend to obscure the sharper question of who captures the value when productivity rises. Pew has put a number on the public's intuition that the answer may not be them.
What happens next?
The survey closed before the most recent round of high-profile developer warnings about automation timelines, so these numbers almost certainly understate current anxiety.
For workers, the practical step is straightforward: pay attention to what your employer is testing, not just what it's announcing. The gap between public statements and quiet pilots can be real, as our coverage of robots being trialled in Meta's data centers has shown.
Common questions
Does this survey prove AI is actually destroying jobs right now?
No. It measures public perception, not verified job losses. Whether those fears are fully justified is a separate empirical question that this survey, reported first by The Verge AI, doesn't resolve. It tells us what people believe, across a broader slice of the globe than most polls reach.
Are these fears specific to any type of worker?
No. Worry crossed education levels and income brackets. Respondents in professional roles expressed concern about their own positions, not just lower-wage work.
What can I do if I'm worried about my own job?
The survey doesn't offer answers, but tracking which tools your employer is adopting and which tasks inside your role are being automated gives you earlier warning than waiting for an announcement.
