More than half of Brits are now using AI
Artificial Intelligence is at the heart of the UK government’s plans to improve public services and boost economic growth.
In January 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the AI Opportunities Action Plan and outlined a bold vision for making the UK a global leader on AI.
However, there remains a gap between the government’s opportunities-oriented agenda and public attitudes towards AI. UK adults are more inclined to view AI as a risk for the economy (39%) than an opportunity (20%), according to a new poll conducted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and Ipsos.
Moreover, 38% of respondents in the same survey cite lack of trust in AI as a barrier to adoption.
“This is a serious problem. Public attitudes shape not only how AI is adopted and governed but also the legitimacy of its use. Just like hype can be dangerous, so low trust in AI can lead to significant opportunity cost by slowing the rollout of well-functioning, socially beneficial use cases,” said the Tony Blair Institute.
“Without broad support, the government will struggle to implement the AI Opportunities Action Plan and deliver on its wider growth agenda. Understanding and improving public attitudes towards AI is thus an urgent task – as is building AI systems worthy of the public’s trust.”
Some of the key findings of the report include:
AI adoption: More than half of UK adults say that they have used generative AI tools in the past 12 months. This is an encouraging figure for a technology that is only a few years old. As previous research has noted, the adoption of generative-AI tools appears to be faster than for the internet (World Wide Web) and personal computers.
Usage patterns: Just under a quarter (23%) of UK adults use generative-AI tools weekly in their work. A similar percentage report knowing at least a fair amount about AI. However, nearly half of the respondents say they have never used AI either at work or at home. This suggests a large part of the population is either unaware of AI tools or not actively using them for other reasons.
Risk versus opportunity: Across the UK, people’s perceptions of whether AI is more of a risk or an opportunity to them personally are finely balanced. For example, 29% of 45- to 54-year-olds viewed AI mainly as a risk and 27% mainly as an opportunity. Younger people are much more likely to view AI as an opportunity, but they also express explicit concerns about broader ethical and societal risks.
Skills and confidence: There is a clear correlation between people’s confidence in using AI and their attitudes towards the technology. Of people confident in their AI skills, 66% expect AI to help with parts of their job while leaving their core responsibilities intact. In contrast, only 45% of people with lower confidence in their skills view AI as a supportive tool.
Trust and use: Frequent AI users are more likely to view AI positively. Only 26% of weekly AI users view AI as a societal risk, compared to 56% of non-users. It is a self-reinforcing spiral: people who trust AI more use AI more, and vice versa.
