Ipsos finds world split on AI benefits, with Asia most optimistic and West most sceptical

Ipsos published its AI Monitor 2024, a survey of roughly 23,700 adults across 32 countries fielded in April and May that year, finding a sharp regional split in how people viewed AI’s overall effect. Asked whether products and services using AI offered more benefit than harm, large majorities agreed in China (83%), Indonesia (80%) and Thailand (77%) — while in Canada, the United States and the Netherlands, only around 40%, 39% and 36% respectively agreed, with most of the remainder either undecided or leaning negative.

Across all 32 countries, the survey found the public roughly split on how they felt personally: 53% said they were excited about AI-powered products and services, against 50% who said AI made them nervous — the two figures were not mutually exclusive, since respondents could hold both feelings. On perceived understanding of AI, 67% said they understood the technology reasonably well, with younger respondents (72% of Gen Z, 71% of Millennials) more confident than Baby Boomers (58%). On jobs, opinion again split: 37% thought AI would improve their own work, 16% thought it would make it worse, and 36% expected AI to replace their job within the coming years. On disinformation, more respondents thought AI would make the problem worse (37%) than better (30%).

The survey continued a pattern already visible in earlier Ipsos and other cross-country polling: enthusiasm for AI tracked closely with a country’s status as a large exporter of AI-adjacent technology and its recent economic growth trajectory, rather than with wealth alone, and it was consistently higher across most of Asia than across the wealthy Anglosphere and Western Europe. Ipsos continued the survey annually, publishing 30- and 32-country editions in the years that followed, giving the 2024 edition a role as an early benchmark for tracking whether public sentiment shifted as AI products became more widely used.