Artificial intelligence is not a tool Gen Z picked up and decided to try. It arrived already embedded in the apps they use to communicate, discover music, scroll through social media, and even find romantic partners. It has replaced search engines as the default way many young people seek information. It has filtered into classrooms and workplaces with little guidance on how to use it responsibly. For a generation still establishing itself in the world, AI is less a novelty than a condition of daily life.
Nearly three in ten American teenagers report using AI chatbots on a daily basis, according to recent research from the Pew Research Center. The majority of Gen Z engages with the technology at home, at school, and at work every month. But widespread use has not translated into widespread enthusiasm. For many in this generation, the relationship with AI is defined more by anxiety than by excitement.
Gen Z and the fear underneath the fluency
Focus groups and listening sessions conducted with young people across the country reveal a generation that is genuinely conflicted. Some express cautious optimism about what artificial intelligence could accomplish in fields like healthcare, education, and skilled trades. But that optimism is consistently outnumbered by concern. A Gallup and Walton Family Foundation survey found that more than half of Gen Z adults say AI makes them anxious, while just 26 percent say it makes them hopeful.
The concerns take several forms. One of the most commonly voiced is the fear of intellectual atrophy, the worry that leaning too heavily on AI for thinking, writing, and problem-solving will erode the very capabilities young people are supposed to be developing. Students describe watching peers use AI to cut corners and feeling a pull to do the same, followed by unease about what that normalisation might cost everyone over time.
There is also the question of what a college degree is worth in an economy increasingly shaped by AI. As tuition climbs and the cost of living rises, young graduates are entering a job market that feels less predictable than the one their education promised to prepare them for. The disruption is not confined to any single field. Students with humanities degrees and students with engineering degrees are expressing the same uncertainty, which suggests the anxiety is not about any one career path but about the instability of the whole landscape.
The environmental and economic toll
Beyond the personal and professional concerns, a growing number of young people are paying attention to what AI infrastructure is doing to their communities and their planet. The expansion of data centres is driving up energy consumption, and in some regions that burden is landing directly on utility customers. A teenager from Tucson described watching her state’s public utility companies propose rate increases tied to database infrastructure, while being told simultaneously that AI would ultimately solve climate problems and that regulation would only slow progress. She found the argument unconvincing and said so without hesitation.
The environmental concern is widespread among Gen Z, though it has not stopped most of them from using AI. That tension, between knowing something has costs and feeling unable to opt out, is one of the more honest and uncomfortable things this generation has been willing to name.
What Gen Z actually wants
When young people are asked which issues they feel are not getting enough attention, AI rises consistently to the top of the list. The specific concerns cluster around misinformation, deepfakes, and the absence of meaningful regulation. Students from New York to California have described wanting to see politicians engage seriously with the question of how much power AI should be allowed to accumulate in particular sectors of the economy and society.
They are not calling for a ban. What they are asking for is a conversation that treats them as stakeholders rather than just users. Gen Z watched social media arrive without guardrails and absorbed consequences that researchers are still documenting. Deteriorated mental health, body image distortion, and a culture built on comparison are part of their inheritance from that era. They are not interested in repeating the experience with a more powerful technology.
They are not against AI. They are asking for the kind of oversight that might make it something worth trusting.
