Gen Z Thinks AI Is Rotting Their Brains, But Can’t Stop Using It: Survey

Gen Z increasingly hates AI, but they also can’t stop using it, according to a new Gallup survey released this week.

The survey, conducted February 24 through March 4 by the Walton Family Foundation, GSV Ventures, and Gallup, polled 1,572 Americans aged 14 to 29. About 51% still use generative AI at least weekly—up 4% from last year.

AI usage among GenZ is rising, but enthusiasm is falling.

Excitement about AI dropped 14 percentage points to just 22%. Hopefulness fell 9 points to 18%. Anger climbed 9 points to 31%. These are not marginal shifts.

And this negative sentiment extends to even the more hardcore users. Among Gen Zers who use AI every single day, excitement dropped 18 points year-over-year. “In most of these cases, Gen Zers have become increasingly sceptical, increasingly negative—from a place where even last year, they weren’t particularly positive about it,” said Zach Hrynowski, a senior education researcher at Gallup.

Eight in 10 Gen Zers believe that relying on AI to get work done faster will likely make learning more difficult in the future, showing fears of becoming dependent on a tool that makes them worse at the things it helps them do.

This issue has been studied before. Scientists weighed in on whether AI makes you dumber back in 2024, and the verdict was uncomfortable: Overreliance on tools like ChatGPT has been linked to procrastination and memory loss in students.

Besides the anxiety over the decreasing cognitive skills, users are also worried about how AI will affect their creativity. Only 31% of Gen Z respondents believe AI helps them come up with new ideas, down from 42% last year. Only 37% trust it for accurate information, down from 43%. This tracks with separate research showing that generative AI hurts originality, boosting individual output while narrowing the diversity of creative work overall.

Workplace skepticism is even sharper. Nearly half of employed Gen Zers—48%—now say the risks of AI outweigh its benefits at work, an 11-point jump from last year. Only 15% see it as a net positive for their careers. Fewer than 20% would choose AI over a human for services like tutoring, financial advice, or customer support. Trust in AI-assisted work sits at 28%, compared to 69% for exclusively human output.

Part of this is rational fear, considering AI is already displacing white-collar jobs faster than most predicted, and Gen Z is watching it happen as they enter the workforce. Sydney Gill, a 19-year-old freshman at Rice University, told the New York Times: “I feel like anything that I’m interested in has the potential of maybe getting replaced, even in the next few years.” A separate Gallup study found 42% of bachelor’s degree students have reconsidered their college major because of AI.

Nearly three-quarters of K-12 schools now have AI policies—up 23 points in a single year—but more rules haven’t produced more trust. If anything, they’ve entrenched a sense of academic dishonesty: 41% of students believe most of their classmates are using AI for schoolwork when they’re not supposed to.

“What we’re seeing in the data is a generation that recognizes AI’s utility but is increasingly concerned about its long-term impact on learning, trust and career readiness,” said Stephanie Marken, senior partner at Gallup. “Their growing skepticism signals a need for more thoughtful integration of these tools in both school settings and the workplace.”

Gen Z was supposed to be AI’s proof of concept—the generation so native to digital tools that adoption would be frictionless and enthusiasm would be self-sustaining. Instead, the data shows a cohort that uses AI largely out of necessity, increasingly distrusts what it produces, and worries that the shortcut is making them worse at the long game. Even elite scientists have started admitting AI does most of their thinking now—which might explain why Gen Z, watching this unfold, isn’t particularly reassured.