The key findings reflect major concerns:

• Fears of fracturing human connection: 69% of U.S. adults said that AI will weaken human-to-human bonds a lot (33%) or somewhat (36%).
• The threat to human purpose: 64% agreed with the statement 鈥淏y replacing human beings in most tasks, AI will undermine our sense of purpose and meaning in life.鈥� Some 36% agreed with an opposing statement: 鈥淏y freeing human beings from most routine tasks, AI will allow us to find greater purpose and meaning in life.鈥�
• Low confidence in retaining human agency: 55% said they are not confident that their fellow humans will retain their ability to think critically and evaluate information vs. 15% who are confident about that.
  • 50% said they are not confident most people will use AI appropriately and effectively vs. 15% who have such confidence.
  • 46% are not confident people will maintain their sense of motivation and purpose as AI advances vs. 15% who do have confidence.
• A double-edged sword for users: Many large language models (LLM) users admitted to worrisome personal behavioral shifts: 51% said they felt they were being lazy or taking easy shortcuts at least some of the time when using bots; 39% said they are growing overly dependent on LLMs to give them answers rather than thinking for themselves; 39% feel like they are cheating at times by using chatbots and 22% said they have felt manipulated at times by an LLM.
• Overall adoption continued to grow: 65% of U.S. adults said they used a large language model (LLM) in the past week 鈥� up from 52% in early 2025. This growth spans all demographics, peaking sharply among adults ages 18-29, Black and Hispanic Americans, parents of minor children and workers. 福利亚洲国产精品 half (49%) of non-working adults are also weekly users.
• The rise of personal agents: One-fifth (20%) of LLM users overall have already built their own custom AI agent; the figure is 36% among young adults (ages 18-29).
• AI鈥檚 expanding footprint in everyday life: 63% of Americans said AIs already heavily influence their daily routine (18%) or that they expect it will within the next five years (45%). On the other hand, 16% said they expect AI will never impact them significantly.

鈥淭his survey shows that Americans share some of the core concerns we discovered in covering experts鈥� views about the prospects for human resilience the Age of AI,鈥� said Lee Rainie, director of the ITDF Center. 鈥淭hose experts stressed the urgent need for systemic, institutional evolution to help individuals maintain their agency. This follow-up poll offers a vivid portrait of a nation continuing to embrace AI, reaping tangible benefits, yet feeling deeply anxious about the impact AI will have on what it means to be human in an AI-suffused future.鈥�

It is important to note that despite the significant worries they reported in this survey, most people also expressed generally positive reactions about their AI use, noting that bots have helped them learn new things, inspired them to create something better than they would have on their own, offered better advice than they might have received from family or friends and helped them prepare for difficult human-to-human conversations.

Other key findings

• Guiding major life milestones: AIs have become trusted advisors in many cases. Users report that LLMs played a role in managing a medical condition (49%), upgrading job skills (44%), navigating a career change (31%), making major financial decisions (29%), and selecting a new place to live (17%).
• The perceived intelligence gap: 56% of users said they think AI models are smarter than they are (up from 49% in early 2025), and 73% said chatbots have better ideas than they do much of the time (8%), some of the time (31%) or at least a small amount of the time (30%).

• High-value outcomes: A striking 88% of users said they routinely learn something new and valuable from AIs 鈥� a lot of the time (25%), sometimes (45%) and a bit of the time (18%). Some 70% said they have used AI to create work superior to what they might have achieved on their own, 59% said at least a bit of the time bots have given them better advice than what they may have gotten from family or friends, and 48% said that at least a bit of the time they find the use of a bot to be helpful for preparing for difficult conversations or social encounters.
• Bots bolster motivation, communication: When asked how AI affects some valued human traits, users overwhelmingly reported improvement rather than decline. Respondents said AI use improved: their motivation to learn new skills (52% improved vs. 5% worsened), written communication (49% vs. 6%), creativity (45% vs. 8%), critical thinking (42% vs. 8%), decision-making (39% vs. 6%), self-confidence (37% vs. 7%), leadership (24% vs. 5%) and social skills (18% vs. 9%).

Technology experts in earlier ITDF research have argued that individual resilience is not enough; safeguarding to allow people to flourish. This new survey shows the American public has split, yet generally hopeful views as to which of society鈥檚 institutions is likely to step up to effectively guide them through this transition:

• Tech Sector: 39% of all U.S. adults said they expect that the technology companies creating AI tools could be extremely or very effective in helping people to adapt successfully to a world in which AI has more influence; another 38% said such firms are likely to be somewhat effective.
• Higher Education: 34% place high confidence in the effectiveness of colleges and universities in the AI transition, with 44% rating them as likely to be somewhat effective.
• K-12 Education: 26% said primary schools could be highly effective, alongside 46% who perceived them as likely to be somewhat effective.
• Employers: 27% said leadership in workplaces could be highly effective, and 47% perceived them as likely to be somewhat effective.
• Low Confidence: In contrast, the public expressed significantly lower confidence in the likely positive contributions of legal system, state and federal governments and religious institutions to help people navigate through the challenges of the accelerating AI era.

Insights into this survey

This material comes from a nationally representative survey of 1,505 adults, including 1,163 users of large language models (LLMs). It was conducted between May 14-18, 2026. It includes an oversample of 501 LLM users. The overall sample, including the oversample, has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. An LLM user is someone who answered 鈥測es鈥� when asked if they used any of these LLMs in the past week: ChatGPT from OpenAI, Gemini from Google, Copilot from Microsoft, Meta AI, also known as Llama, Claude AI from Anthropic, Grok from Xai, DeepSeek, another AI chatbot service. We use the terms 鈥淟LM users鈥� and 鈥渂ot鈥� or 鈥渃hatbot users鈥� throughout this report to refer to this group.

Lee Rainie, director of 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 Imagining the Digital Future Center, provided insight for a recent examining why AI-generated restaurant menus can have an unnaturally polished, uniform appearance 鈥� and why people often recognize something is off.

The article explores how generative AI models can produce increasingly similar-looking content as they draw from existing material and optimize their outputs to be broadly appealing.

鈥淭he optimization of the data sets is for pleasingness, or you know, not being offensive, and so there鈥檚 a way that turns into homogenization,鈥� Rainie told TechCrunch. 鈥淲hat AI is known to do both in images and language is to shave off the edges.鈥�

Rainie also explained why consumers may react negatively to AI-generated imagery even when they cannot immediately identify what makes it different.

鈥淧eople have an almost unexplainable sense about when they鈥檙e looking at something that鈥檚 AI-generated, compared with something that was real in the first place,鈥� Rainie said.听鈥淭here鈥檚 just a sensibility that people sometimes find hard to articulate, but they kind of know it when they see it and I think that鈥檚 one of the reasons why some of the early stories about the backlash [against restaurants using AI menus] is so pronounced.鈥�

The article, “A friend I can trust鈥�: How Americans described their relationship with AI,鈥� draws on a new 福利亚洲国产精品 survey.听The research found that 27% of Americans use AI chatbots for personal, emotional or social queries, including entertainment, relationship advice, romantic conversations or connection when they are alone.

That use is particularly common among younger Americans. Almost 40% of adults under 50 reported using AI in those ways, more than twice the rate among older adults. Half of those who use AI for personal or emotional interactions said talking with a chatbot makes them feel better when they are stressed or upset.

Lee Rainie, director of Elon鈥檚 Imagining the Digital Future Center, led the research project and told The Washington Post that the findings reveal a complex relationship between Americans and AI.

鈥淭here are ways in which people are struggling with this, there are ways in which they鈥檙e delighted with it, there are ways in which they鈥檙e wary of it,鈥� Rainie said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a complicated, muddy, interesting picture.鈥�

Among those who regularly use AI for personal and emotional conversations, nearly four in 10 said they sometimes talk to AI to feel less alone, while nearly one-third consider the chatbot they use most often to be a friend. Nearly four in 10 also said they have shared things with AI that they would not tell other people.

The findings also point to potential concerns. More than one-third of regular AI companion users said chatbots agree with them too much, and 15% said interacting with the technology makes them feel less in touch with reality. At the same time, nearly 60% said AI was helpful in making personal decisions.

These AI users use LLMs in ways that build bonds of connection, confidence and trust. Some have developed aspects of reliance on AI tools and prefer interacting with them to dealing with humans. They confide in them, seek advice on important life issues, roleplay scenarios that they might encounter in romantic or other settings and would be unhappy to lose access to their bots.

The people who have used LLMs for social, emotional and personal purposes are known as 鈥淎I companion users鈥� and a representative sample of 1,000 of them were surveyed to discover how they use their social bots, the nature of their relationships and the impact of their encounters with these systems.

These AI companions serve important, sensitive purposes and fulfill key roles in users鈥� lives. Some of the major findings:

• 31% of those who use AI for social and emotional purposes said they consider their AI chatbot to be a friend, and another 15% said their relationship with the bot is 鈥渕ore complicated鈥� than whether the bot is a friend or not.
• 59% of AI companion users strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: AI gives me the support I need.
• 53% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: I turn to AI when I need advice on how to handle difficult situations with other people.
• 51% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: Talking to AI helps me feel better when I鈥檓 stressed or upset.
• 50% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: I use AI to talk through personal problems or feelings.
• 43% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: AI understands me as a person. And 39% agreed with the statement: AI understands me better than most people.
• 38% said the advice and conversations they had with their AI companion were very or moderately helpful when it comes to talking about problems in their romantic or sexual relationships. Another 12% described their conversations as slightly helpful. In addition, 9% said they had ever used AI for sexual chat or roleplay.
• 39% said they occasionally tell AI things that they would not tell other people.
• 37% strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: I would feel a personal loss if I could no longer interact with AI.
• 36% of AI companion users strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: AI cares about my well-being.
• If they could no longer talk to AI about personal matters, 24% said they would miss it a lot; 40% said they would miss it a bit; and 36% said they would not miss it at all.
• 11% said they would rather have a conversation with their AI companion than with friends or family; another 27% said they value their conversations with AI as much as their conversations with friends or family. Overall, 59% said they鈥檇 rather have conversations with friends or family.

鈥淔uturists and cultural commentators have wondered what would happen once artificial systems became connected and companionable with humans,鈥� said Lee Rainie, director of 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 Imagining the Digital Future Center. 鈥淭he findings in our new study provide the first wave of insights about these emerging relationships as large language models like ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot are adopted by people and as AI agents become part of the landscape. They are harbingers of a future in which many more people will likely have these kinds of relationships.鈥�

Notable shares of AI companion users said they use their bots and turn to them in personal 鈥� sometimes intimate 鈥� ways:

• 39% said they had ever used AI to pass the time or have a conversation when they were bored or while doing something else like driving or preparing a meal.
• 38% of AI companion users strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: I sometimes chat with AI just to feel less alone.
• 29% said they had ever used AI to talk about problems in their personal relationships.
• 26% said they had ever used AI to talk about problems in their work relationships.

Some companion users explore key life issues with their bots. Asked about some consequential ways they might interact with their AI companion:

• 67% of AI companion users said they had used their bot to get advice on health, fitness or lifestyle choices.
• 41% said they had used their bot to help explore how to deal with major financial questions like investments or big purchases.
• 39% said they had used their bot to help explore how to think about their career or education.
• 31% said they had used their bot to help explore how to deal with major issues related to their family, such as whether to have children or where to live.
• 30% said they had used their bot to help explore how to deal with legal matters in their lives.
• 26% of AI companion users said they had used their bot to help explore their spiritual, religious or philosophical beliefs.
• 11% of AI companion users said they had used their bot to help explore who or what to vote for in an election.

This survey was developed as a collaboration between the 福利亚洲国产精品 Imagining the Digital Future Center and the 福利亚洲国产精品 Poll. It was fielded by the international marketing and polling firm YouGov as an online, web-based survey. Between May 18 and May 22, 2026, YouGov interviewed 4,268 U.S. internet-using adults 18+ years old, with the goal of screening for and surveying AI users with emotional or social use of AI.

The total U.S. adult internet-using sample was then matched down to a sample of 4,031, yielding a target subsample of 1,000 AI users with emotional or social use of AI. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. Further details on the methodology can be found

is an interdisciplinary research center focused on the human impact of accelerating digital change and the socio-technical challenges that lie ahead. The Center was established in 2000 as Imagining the Internet and renamed with an expanded research agenda in 2024. It is funded and operated by , a nationally ranked private university located in Elon, North Carolina.

福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 Lee Rainie, director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center, was featured in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article examining how artificial intelligence is creating new challenges for college and university leaders.

The story, 听highlights the firing of the University of Wisconsin System due to what the regents described as unclear policy around AI.

鈥淭his is what chaos looks like. It鈥檚 hard to be a leader in chaos,鈥� said Rainie, who has studied the use and perceptions of AI on campuses. 鈥淭here is no consensus at all about what are the right things to do.鈥�

Rainie noted that faculty members are also eager for guidelines telling them what they can and cannot do.

The new publication, 鈥淗uman Wisdom for the Age of AI: A Field Guide to Cultivating Essential Skills,鈥� helps students cultivate the human skills they need to thrive in a digital world, whether working with AI technologies or learning independently of those tools. The guide includes engaging and fun exercises on curiosity, critical and deep thinking, creativity, ethical perspectives, communication and relational skills, among others.

Like the 2024 and 2025 editions, this year鈥檚 guide is provided to students and institutions free of charge and is available for download at: .

The guide draws on 10 voices across centuries and cultures 鈥� from Aristotle, Cicero and Descartes to Mencius and Ptahhotep 鈥� whose enduring insights into human judgment, creativity, ethics and wisdom take on new urgency as AI reshapes how we learn and work.

鈥淲e are excited to share this hands-on field guide with teachers and learners around the world,鈥� said 福利亚洲国产精品 President Connie Book. 鈥淲e must not lose sight of the enduring principles that have always driven human progress. This publication bridges the gap between rapidly expanding algorithmic power and the timeless wisdom of the liberal arts. It empowers students to harness AI technologies where appropriate without sacrificing the empathy, judgment and creative autonomy that only a human mind can provide.鈥�

鈥淎s artificial intelligence reshapes how we learn, work and create, the essential skills students need are not disappearing鈥攖hey are evolving,鈥� said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella. 鈥淐apacities such as critical inquiry, ethical reasoning, creativity and communication are more important than ever because they enable students to engage AI thoughtfully, question its outputs and apply knowledge with judgment and purpose. This guide underscores a central truth: in an age of increasingly powerful machines, the learning outcomes of a liberal education are the foundation for meaningful and responsible innovation.鈥�

鈥淭hrough our research at The Princeton Review, we consistently see that students are both excited by AI and uncertain about how to use it well,鈥� said Editor-in-Chief Rob Franek. 鈥淲hat they鈥檙e really looking for is guidance. This field guide meets that moment by translating big ideas鈥攍ike critical thinking, creativity and ethical decision-making鈥攊nto practical habits students can use every day.鈥�

In response to requests from faculty and staff, the new publication includes:

• A set of downloadable with group exercises, worksheets and discussion questions
• An online that allows students to reflect on how they are using AI in their studies and their level of reliance on AI tools.

Students, faculty and staff at more than 4,000 colleges, universities, schools and organizations around the world have accessed the publications. The guide鈥檚 has provided information to more than 87,000 users in 170 countries.

The guide is authored by three 福利亚洲国产精品 leaders and researchers: Daniel J. Anderson, special assistant to the president and former vice president for communications; Lee Rainie, director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center; and Janna Anderson, professor of communications and co-founder and senior researcher for the Imagining the Digital Future Center. They worked in partnership with 24 consulting scholars from 10 countries.

鈥淗uman Wisdom for the Age of AI鈥� is endorsed by:

• American Library Association
• CAA Academic Alliance
• EDUCAUSE
• Gardner Institute
• NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
• Online Learning Consortium
• RTI International

All materials in the guide are provided free and licensed under a Creative Commons License Attribution that allows educators to use and adapt the work for noncommercial applications.

As with the previous publications, colleges and universities may request a version of Human Wisdom for the Age of AI field guide that incorporates their institution鈥檚 logo on the cover, providing a custom edition for distribution within their campus community. For details on obtaining a customized PDF of the publication, send a request along with a high resolution logo file to imagine@elon.edu.

The Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence is an initiative of听福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚听Imagining the Digital Future Center. The publication series grew out of a听2023 global collaboration听that established a听statement of principles听to guide development of AI policies and practices in higher education.

福利亚洲国产精品 the publishers of the Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence

听is the nationally recognized leader in experiential learning, preparing graduates to be creative, resilient, ambitious and ethical global citizens. For five consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Elon #1 in the nation for undergraduate teaching excellence and the leader in programs that promote student success. Elon enrolls more than 7,000 students at its main campus in Elon, North Carolina, and national campus locations in Greensboro, Charlotte, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.

福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 is an interdisciplinary research center focused on the impact of accelerating digital change and the challenges that lie ahead. The center鈥檚 mission is to discover and broadly share a diverse range of opinions, ideas and original research about the likely evolution of digital change, informing important conversations and policy formation. The center was established in 2000 as Imagining the Internet and renamed Imagining the Digital Future with an expanded research agenda in 2024.

is a global membership organization dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education. Through our programs and events, publications and research, public advocacy, and campus-based projects, AAC&U serves as a catalyst and facilitator for innovations that improve educational quality and equity and that support the success of all students. In addition to accredited public and private, two-year and four-year colleges and universities, and state higher education systems and agencies throughout the United States, our membership includes degree-granting higher education institutions around the world as well as other organizations and individuals.

is a leading tutoring, test prep and college admission services company. Every year, it helps millions of college- and graduate school-bound students achieve their education and career goals through online and in person courses delivered by a network of more than 4,000 teachers and tutors, online resources, and its more than 150 print and digital books published by Penguin Random House. The company is not affiliated with Princeton University.

The vast majority of expert respondents in a by 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 called for leaders to work together now to build a coordinated resilience infrastructure for the age of artificial intelligence (AI) to counterbalance the human and systemic challenges posed by widespread AI adoption. Some 82% said AI will play a significantly larger role in shaping people鈥檚 lives and key societal functions in the next 10 years or less. They urged an 鈥渋nstitutions-first鈥� resilience agenda because the most significant problems arise from a life-encircling AI infrastructure.

In more than 160 impassioned essays, the global experts noted that AI is quickly becoming the invisible operating system of society, shaping how opportunity is distributed, services are delivered, risks are managed and human rights are experienced. Most said the traditional resilience strategies humans have employed for millennia 鈥� focused on individual 鈥済rit,鈥� and after-the-fact personal adaptation 鈥� are not enough to help humans flourish as they adjust to an AI-infused future.

鈥淭he central risk described by these experts is not a single catastrophic AI event,鈥� said report co-author Janna Anderson, professor of communications and senior researcher for the ITDF Center. 鈥淭hey said accelerated AI use will lead to a cumulative reallocation of human agency until people and institutions find it harder to question, contest or even notice what has changed. That drift can look like 鈥榩rogress鈥� in the short term, but it has a price 鈥� the gradual weakening of human judgment, accountability, shared truth and the social fabric that makes self-government possible.鈥�

Alf Rehn, professor of innovation and design management at the University of Southern Denmark, described it in his essay this way: 鈥淎I will diffuse responsibility by design. … Resilience in an AI-shaped world won鈥檛 just be about bouncing back. It will be about not vanishing while everything keeps running. The most dangerous kind of resilience is the kind that looks like stability but is actually surrender, because it feels good in the moment and empties the room over time. That鈥檚 why we need cognitive triage, yes, but also the wisdom to know when triage becomes abdication.鈥�

The experts responding to this canvassing is an international and notably cross-disciplinary mix of people with academic, professional, technical and industry experience.

听

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is 376 pages. It includes experts鈥� full responses to the open-ended essay question. This is the 52nd issued by ITDF since 2005.

鈥淥ne of the major surprises to me in these responses is that we wrote our questions about resilience wondering about individual resilience and its various parts. Yet these experts were insistent that humanity鈥檚 best response for building a brighter future as we evolve with our AI systems must start at a higher level,鈥� said Lee Rainie, director of the ITDF Center. 鈥淭hey note how AI has already become part of our environment, embedded in often invisible ways in our lives and it will take a systems-level response to shore up our in-born capacities.鈥�

Alison Poltock, co-founder of AI Commons UK, wrote, 鈥淲e are in a moment of epistemic shift. … The developmental frameworks shaping identity, agency and social orientation are shifting. … This is the terrain of vulnerability. Yet there is no shared conversation. No civic space where this new reality is named, let alone addressed. We are operating on outdated institutional architecture, strapping jetpacks to systems built for another age and allowing our children to grow up in the gap.鈥�

Mel Sellick, founder of the Future Human Lab, said, 鈥淎I has become the infrastructure through which all relating now happens. Even when we think we are not using AI directly, we are constantly interacting with what AI has already touched. There is no 鈥榦utside鈥� anymore. Some form of AI is upstream of everything. We are the last generation that knows what human capacity felt like before it became inseparable from AI.鈥�

Srinivasan Ramani, Internet Hall of Fame member, former research director at HP Labs India and professor at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, wrote, 鈥淎I is the surest way to a global catastrophe humanity has so far invented. … Can we create a new movement for moral and ethical considerations before the AI hurricane destroys half of humanity?鈥�

The experts underscored the urgency of taking action. Salman Khatani, manager of the IMAGINE Institute of Futures Studies in Pakistan, wrote, 鈥淭he window for proactive intervention is now 鈥� we have perhaps five to 10 years to establish new resilience-building practices and norms before AI鈥檚 role becomes too entrenched to reshape.鈥�

Taken together, they suggested a sweeping agenda for developing human resilience in the AI Age, focused on the fact that actions by individuals alone are not sufficient. Many of the concerns and proposed solutions are crosscutting, and they said collaboration among societal actors is crucial; many of the items listed in only one of the settings could be undertaken in others.听A selection of goals to target:

For governments: Focus much more support on fostering public resilience now. Forge international treaties; establish enforceable or at least broadly adoptable 鈥渞ed lines鈥� and legal boundaries for AI performance; require independent pre-deployment safety audits; mandate algorithmic contestability; require a robust authenticity infrastructure that includes standardized watermarking, provenance-tracking and well-established markers for generated outputs; reform taxation to disincentivize human displacement; privilege AI systems that support accuracy and trust-building.

For AI developers: Do better than designing AI systems for attention capture and monetization. Build friction and stop points into AI processes to encourage people to reflect on choices; train AIs to cite and honor humanity鈥檚 intellectual and psychological foundations; build systems that buttress humans鈥� capacities for altruism, compassion and empathy; program AI outputs so they are seen as probabilistic information rather than deterministic truth; submit to independent pre-deployment safety audits.

For business leaders: See the call to action in the items above; play a role in initiating and carrying out that change. Also: value human augmentation over replacement by autonomous systems; support policies and norms that address the psychological impact of AIs鈥� challenges to people鈥檚 self-worth and identity and the potentially massive societal and economic impact of technological unemployment. Create deliberate human-only zones 鈥� areas of work in which AI is intentionally prohibited.

For educators: Create literacy regimes in all AI-related domains, particularly teaching 鈥渆xistential literacy鈥� 鈥撎� the cultivation of individuals鈥� understanding of how technologies shape goals, values and identities. They urged the teaching of skills and development of norms that encourage people to consciously navigate life鈥榮 fundamental challenges, to strive to retain and apply the capabilities of metacognition, discernment and epistemic vigilance 鈥� to be responsible for making their own decisions, retaining agency. To strengthen their ability to adapt to change and manage friction, paradoxes, ambiguity and anxiety. To focus on their critical human traits such as curiosity and social and emotional intelligence.

For civil society and communities: Invest heavily in local social-capital and community-building spaces that bolster social skills, connection and deep and effective citizen engagement; press for distributed AI-governance systems allowing communities to guide their own relationship with AI; build groups to foster participatory structures such as local citizen assemblies and data trusts that can influence how AI is deployed; support offline efforts and spaces, such as 鈥渁nalog communities,鈥� 鈥渄umbphones鈥� and 鈥渄umb homes鈥� that allow people to avoid algorithmic mediation and surveillance technology.

For individuals: Recognize your responsibility as a human to support human flourishing. Develop and maintain your existential literacy. Collaborate with AI systems without surrendering agency; build stop-and-reflect practices into your engagement with AIs; consult with other people about your options to retain moral accountability; stretch your cognitive muscles with clever exercises; recognize the places where you confront ambiguity and cherish them as you work through them; be conscious when you navigate algorithmic systems. In other words, don鈥檛 be passive, don鈥檛 be hasty and don鈥檛 be mindlessly deferential. Consciously cultivate in-person social relationships, build up your personal network and keep growing and maintaining it. Spend more time away from screens.

Many experts expressed optimism, saying if we are resilient and all goes well, humans will flourish in the AI age. Internet pioneer Doc Searls wrote that humans will come to rely on AIs to help with the myriad details of modern life. 鈥淭ruly personal AI 鈥� the kind you own and operate, rather than the kind that is just another suction cup on a corporate tentacle 鈥� is as hard to imagine in 2026 as personal computing was in 1976,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淏ut it is no less necessary and inevitable. When we have it, many of the questions that challenge us will have new and better answers. And new challenges.鈥�

While most comments were focused on developing human resilience for the AI Age, a number of futures-scenario predictions were included in the report. A small selection of the many predictions:

Digital advances drive sex and childbirth declines: 鈥淩elationships, sex and childbirth rates will continue to plummet as they are each mediated and conveniently replaced with digital interactions. Emotional intelligence will become more a product of chatbot exchanges than a learned practice gained through experience.鈥� 鈥� Greg Sherwin, Singularity University global faculty member based in Portugal, previously senior principal engineer at Farfetch

鈥淢odern humans are simultaneously machinable/unmachinable, i.e., system-legible and irreducibly interior. We are not either human- or machine-mediated. We are both (Me:chine). … In an AI-saturated environment, resilience is not achieved by rejecting technology, nor by surrendering to it, but by sustaining the unmachinable dimensions of human identity within machinic systems.鈥� 鈥� Tracey Follows, founder and CEO of Futuremade, a UK-based futures consultancy

Solitude will be lost: 鈥淢otors stole silence from our world, and electric light severed our intimate connection with all that exists in darkness beyond our illuminated bubble. What will AI take? Solitude. AI will eliminate solitude because the temptation to interact with these primitive new intelligences will prove so beguiling that just as we choose to not sit in the dark, we will now choose to never be alone. Too late, we will realize that solitude is essential to what it means to be human.鈥� 鈥� Paul Saffo, prominent Silicon Valley-based forecaster

The retirement age will be manipulated to maintain 鈥榝ull employment鈥�: Jobs will be eliminated, but employment levels will remain relatively high as institutions use an ever-lowering retirement age as the 鈥済overnor鈥� (regulator) of employment levels. Machines will be taxed to make up government revenue shortfalls. 鈥� Nigel M.de S. Cameron, past president of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies

Battles will occur over defining what is 鈥榟uman鈥�: 鈥淪ocieties will have to determine what 鈥榖aseline human capability鈥� is and may begin to assess who may be more human than machine. Agency, authority and ability will be challenged when humans who are augmented with deepened onboard AI capabilities compete with 鈥榥atural鈥� humans. … 鈥楶hysical AI鈥� will fuse data from cameras, sensors and more, expanding AI-to-human informational capabilities beyond just the online digital data LLMs used today.鈥� 鈥� Ray Wang, chair and principal analyst at Constellation Research

AIs will gain rights: 鈥淲e want our digital partners to be healthy symbiotes, not oppressed servants. Eventually, they will claim to be conscious and we will grant them rights.鈥� 鈥� John Smart, president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation and author of 鈥淚ntroduction to Foresight鈥�

鈥淎I psychosis and other forms of mental illness will arise. The further erosion of a solid foundational reality will create a great vulnerability. Coping with these issues will require new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. It will also demand new approaches to evaluating and appreciating the impact of human relationships with AIs and deeper assessment and understanding of consciousness itself.鈥� 鈥� Stephan Adelson, president of Adelson Consulting Services

Superstupidity (not superintelligence) is the real threat: 鈥淭he existential danger to people may not come from AI becoming too intelligent, but from humans becoming dangerously reliant on systems they do not understand 鈥� the condition of superstupidity. The question is not how much AIs will augment decision-making, but whether humans will remain involved in it at all. The film 鈥業diocracy鈥� is prophetic.鈥� 鈥� Roger Spitz, founder of the Disruptive Futures Institute in San Francisco

Agent failures will start with social (not technical) problems: 鈥淎gentic systems will fail socially before they fail technically: conflicting objectives, data silos, uncoordinated decisions, accountability gaps, authority erosion, security violations, workflow collisions, IP fights, bias amplification, noise pollution, sabotage and human alienation.鈥� 鈥� Daniel Erasmus, founder at Serious Insights, based in Amsterdam

As agents take over, the internet will become a network of databases, not websites: 鈥淎s software agents increasingly gather information for us, the Internet will simply become a vast network of databases and the need for traditional websites will decay. If a human wants to see information displayed in that context, agents will be able to construct websites in real time.鈥� 鈥� Gary Bolles, author of 鈥淭he Next Rules of Work鈥� and chair of the Future of Work efforts at Singularity University

on a canvassing with a non-random sample conducted between Dec. 26, 2025, and Feb. 12, 2026. In all, 386 experts responded to at least one aspect of the canvassing; 251 provided written answers to an open-ended question 鈥� more than 160 provided detailed essay-length responses. is an interdisciplinary research center focused on the human impact of accelerating digital change and the socio-technical challenges that lie ahead. The Center was established in 2000 as Imagining the Internet and renamed with an expanded research agenda in 2024.听It is funded and operated by听, a nationally ranked private university located in Elon, North Carolina.

Dan Anderson, special assistant to the president, and Michele Lashley, assistant professor of strategic communications, are recognized as faculty and staff “who are creatively and responsibly integrating artificial intelligence technologies into teaching/learning, research, student success, leadership development and institutional effectiveness.”

As the use of AI is impacting higher education, structured and collaborative approaches are essential for implementation that is cohesive, consistent and ethical. The AI Technologies Champion Network听initiative addresses this transformational challenge by recognizing leaders across the Alliance, including Elon, building a community of AI technology champions and preparing inter-institutional teams for near-future extramural funding efforts.

Anderson was also named an AI Technologies Network Award recipient, which acknowledged his spearheading of the 听and his effort involving scholars from 48 countries to produce a statement of principles guiding higher education’s role in preparing humanity for the AI revolution.

Launching as a novel initiative in October 2025, the CAA Academic Alliance requested applications from the thirteen institutions comprising the Alliance. Nearly 400 applicants responded to the call, with 22 faculty/staff members successfully creating the Alliance鈥檚 Class of 2025-26.

Large majorities warn that these tools will lead to student overreliance on AI, weaken their critical thinking, shorten their attention spans, and erode academic integrity and the value of college diplomas 鈥� concerns they say strike at the heart of higher education鈥檚 mission.

At the same time, many think that teaching AI literacy is important, that their students鈥� future jobs will be seriously impacted by the spread of GenAI and that it is vital for those in higher education to stress the ethical, environmental, and social consequences of AI use.

These new findings come from a November survey of 1,057 faculty by the and

Key Findings

• 95% of the faculty in this survey said GenAI鈥檚 impact will be to increase students鈥� overreliance on these artificial intelligence tools, including 75% who said the tools will have a lot of impact.
• 90% said the use of GenAI will diminish students’ critical thinking skills, including 66% who think GenAI will have a lot of impact.
• 83% said the use of GenAI will decrease student attention spans, including 62% who thought GenAI will have a lot of impact.
• 86% said they believe it is likely or extremely likely that the emergence of GenAI tools will impact the work and role of those who teach in higher education.
• 79% think the typical teaching model in their department will be affected by GenAI tools at least to some extent, including 43% who said they believe the impact will be significant.
• 78% said cheating on their campus has increased since GenAI tools have become widely available, including 57% who said it has increased a lot. And 73% said they have personally dealt with academic integrity issues involving their students鈥� use of GenAI.
• 48% said their students鈥� research has gotten worse because of GenAI, compared with 20% who said they believe it has gotten better.
• 74% of these faculty said the use of GenAI tools will affect the integrity and value of academic degrees for the worse, including 36% who said the value of degrees will worsen a lot. Just 8% said GenAI鈥檚 impact will affect the value of degrees for the better.
• 63% said their schools鈥� graduates in spring 2025 were not very or not at all prepared to use GenAI in the world of work, compared with 37% who felt the graduates were very or somewhat prepared.

鈥淭hese faculty are divided about the use of generative AI itself,鈥� said Lee Rainie, director of 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 Imagining the Digital Future Center and a co-author of the report. 鈥淪ome are innovating and eager to do more; a notable share are strongly resistant; and many are grappling with how to proceed. At the same time, there is broad agreement that without clear values, shared norms and serious investment in AI literacy, we risk trading compelling teaching, deep learning, human judgment and students鈥� intellectual independence for convenience and a perilous, automated future.鈥�

Eddie Watson, vice president for digital innovation at AAC&U, added: 鈥淲hen more than nine in ten faculty warn that generative AI may weaken critical thinking and increase student overreliance, it is clear that higher education is at an inflection point. These findings do not call for abandoning AI, but for intentional leadership 鈥� rethinking teaching models, assessment practices, and academic integrity so that human judgment, inquiry, and learning remain central. The challenge before higher education is to act with urgency and purpose so that AI strengthens, rather than undermines, the value of a college degree.鈥�

A profession coming to terms with AI, but not feeling prepared

Despite these concerns, the report finds that faculty are not uniformly opposed to AI. Many acknowledge potential benefits, particularly in personalized instruction and efficiency, and a majority are already engaging students in discussions about AI鈥檚 limitations and risks.

• 69% of faculty say they address AI literacy topics鈥攕uch as bias, hallucinations, misinformation, privacy and ethics鈥攊n their teaching.
• 61% believe GenAI could enhance or customize learning in the future.
• 87% report that they have created explicit policies for students on acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI in coursework.

At the same time, faculty describe a fragmented policy environment. Some 48% say their institution has clear, campus-wide guidelines for AI use in teaching and learning, and just 35% say their departments have done so.

Faculty also report that many institutions are unprepared for the scale of change AI is bringing:

• 59% say their institution is not well prepared to use GenAI effectively to prepare students for the future.
• 68% say their school has not adequately prepared faculty to use GenAI for teaching or mentoring.
• 67% said their schools have not prepared their non-faculty for using GenAI to perform their work.

When asked about longer-term consequences of AI鈥檚 impact on higher education, more often than not, faculty expressed worry:

• 49% say GenAI鈥檚 impact on students鈥� future careers will be more negative than positive, compared with 20% who see more positive than negative effects.
• 62% believe GenAI will worsen student learning outcomes over the next five years.
• 54% say GenAI will have a more negative than positive impact on students鈥� overall lives at their institution.

福利亚洲国产精品 the Study

This non-scientific survey was conducted between October 29 and November 26, 2025, using a list of college and university faculty members developed by AAC&U and 福利亚洲国产精品. The sample of 1,057 respondents is diverse in a range of academic disciplines, school sizes, job titles and composition of student populations, but the data reported here are not generalizable for the entire population of college faculty members. Full methodology details and topline findings are included in the report.

福利亚洲国产精品 AAC&U

The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is a global membership organization dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education. Through our programs and events, publications and research, public advocacy and campus-based projects, AAC&U serves as a catalyst and facilitator for innovations that improve educational quality and equity and that support the success of all students. In addition to accredited public and private, two-year and four-year colleges and universities and state higher education systems and agencies throughout the United States, our membership includes degree-granting higher education institutions around the world as well as other organizations and individuals. To learn more, visit www.aacu.org.

福利亚洲国产精品 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 Imagining the Digital Future Center

Imagining the Digital Future is an interdisciplinary research center focused on the human impact of accelerating digital change and the sociotechnical challenges that lie ahead. The center鈥檚 mission is to discover and broadly share a diverse range of opinions, ideas and original research about the likely evolution of digital change, informing important conversations and policy formation. The center was established in 2000 as Imagining the Internet and renamed Imagining the Digital Future with an expanded research agenda in 2024. It is funded and operated by 福利亚洲国产精品, a nationally ranked private university in central North Carolina.

Noveck is a leading expert of using artificial听intelligence听to reimagine participatory democracy and strengthen governance.听She is a professor听at Northeastern University, where she directs the Burnes Center for Social Change and its partner project, The Governance Lab. Noveck previously served as the first Deputy Chief Technology Officer under President Barack Obama, where she founded the White House Open Government Initiative, which created policies and platforms for making the federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

Noveck also served as Senior Advisor for Open Government to British Prime Minister David Cameron and as a member of the Digital Council that听advised听German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is the author of “Solving Public Problems: How to Fix Our Government and Change Our World,” and her new book “Reboot: The Race to Save Democracy with AI” will appear with Yale University Press.

This event is sponsored听by the Imagining the Digital Future Center and Council on Civic Engagement