As of the past two years, artificial intelligence has, for many, become a regular occurrence when browsing the internet. Many companies are implementing AI or AI-related features into their software and websites, even in places where people find it unnecessary. This brings up the question: do people actually care about AI as much as companies think they do? More importantly, do people actually want AI?
At Taylorsville High School, many students shared a similar view of AI. When briefly asking people in classes and in the hallways, most students had little opinion regarding AI, and those who did often had a negative opinion.
“No, I don’t think AI matters as much as companies are saying it does,” replied sophomore Sara McEwen. She said that she didn’t use AI very much, and when asked what kind of AI she most frequently used, she replied, “I use the AI that teachers give you to do writing and stuff.”
Another sophomore, Jacob Kummer, had a similar opinion. When asked if AI features would impact his decision to use something, he said, “Probably a negative impact, I’d probably choose something without.” Similarly to McEwen, he also said that he didn’t use AI that frequently, and didn’t think it mattered as much as advertised.
The Pew Research Center reflects this data in their report: Artificial intelligence in daily life: Views and experiences [⇗]. The report shows survey data from both adults in the U.S. and AI experts, who they define as “individuals whose work or research relates to AI.”
Of the AI experts, 79% said that they think people in the U.S. interact with AI almost constantly, whereas only 27% of the surveyed adults said they did. 30% said they used it several times a week, the majority (43%) of the surveyed adults said that they use AI less often than that.
Regarding AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, nearly all of the AI experts said that they used one, however of the adults, only 33% said that they have. On top of that, only 33% of the adults who have used an AI chatbot said that it was very helpful, while 46% said it was somewhat helpful and 21% felt that it wasn’t very helpful at all.
However, almost universally across both AI experts and average U.S. adults, most feel that they don’t have much control over AI in their lives. 59% of adults, and 46% of experts, said that they did not have much or any control. Even more universally, however, is how many people wanted more control. 57% of experts and 55% of adults said they want more control.
The Pew Research Center also found that experts who work at colleges are more likely, compared to those working at private companies, to say they want more control over AI. This supports the claim that most of the excitement over AI is from companies that currently benefit from the development and expansion of artificial intelligence.
Nvidia, for example, is a company that manufactures computer hardware, but is most well known for its gaming graphics cards. These are essential for AI, as the architecture of the graphics cards is significantly more suitable for running AI models compared to regular CPU’s, especially large language models, such as ChatGPT. AI companies flocked to Nvidia to purchase graphics cards in large quantities, which resulted in Nvidia having sold more cards than they had actually made.
While Nvidia makes specialised AI and enterprise cards, they also make most of the desktop gaming cards available to consumers. When Nvidia started prioritising enterprise customers over consumers, many of these people became reasonably frustrated with Nvidia, which also worsened their opinion of AI.
However, graphics cards aren’t the only thing AI data centers need in large quantities. These large data centers also require huge amounts of RAM and storage devices, which the companies making them have had a similar issue of not having enough supply or capacity to manufacture enough supply to meet demand.
Due to the disproportionate demand compared to supply, prices for these basic computer components skyrocketed in late 2025, when the lack of manufacturing capacity finally became a big enough problem for these companies’ revenue. This has affected anyone looking to purchase any tech-related product, but has most heavily impacted the PC gaming community. These high component prices don’t just affect those purchasing the individual components, but also affect the prices of prebuilt computers and game consoles.
This has made AI seem like a worse and worse investment to people; the more this goes on, which contributes quite heavily to the user base of AI, as tech enthusiasts would’ve normally been considered more likely to be early adopters of AI. It doesn’t help when companies seem not to listen to their users, either, such as Nvidia.
However, some companies are listening. Dell announced at CES 2026 and on a blog post [⇗], that they will be backing away from AI PC’s, acknowledging that most people don’t want to buy a computer solely for using AI, by bringing back their XPS line of professional-consumer laptops. Unfortunately, they are only one of the very few major tech companies to do so at the time of writing this article. However, it it likely with the high unprofitability of AI that more companies will follow suit.
As it appears, most people seem not to care about AI nearly as much as it’s being advertised by the companies that develop it. Among everyone, even AI experts, more control is wanted. Very few companies are currently considering backing away from AI despite negative customer feedback regarding AI. Companies profiting from selling more hardware than they have are practically ignoring their own customers due to AI companies’ bulk purchasing and investing in each other.
People are getting tired of AI, and it’s only a matter of time before the AI bubble bursts, just like the Dot Com Bubble of the early 2000’s.
