More consumers are using AI, but don’t want it anywhere near their media and entertainment.
A new study from iHeartMedia found that 70 percent of the respondents surveyed use AI and called it “helpful” and “time-saving,” but 75 percent don’t want AI used in the media or entertainment they consume. Further, two-thirds of those surveyed feared job loss related to AI, with Gen Z and lower-income consumers among the most worried, while the same number feared it could go to war with humans.
This comes after iHeartMedia found that more than half of consumers were not aware of AI about two or three years ago. While usage and knowledge is now up, there is still a distrust among even those who are incorporating it into their daily lives.
“What’s interesting is that 70 percent of Americans are using it, and the Americans who are using it don’t feel much different than the Americans who are not using it,” said Lainie Fertick, president of Insights for iHeartMedia. “The levels of distrust or concern or ‘It could go into war with humans’ are not, once you correct for age, gender, ethnicity and some other factors, markedly different among users and non users.”
“A lot of people say that ‘I’m using AI,’ but there’s still this desire and this need for AI to be a tool for humans, rather than a replacement,” Fertick noted.
The survey, which is iHeartMedia’s third annual study on consumer behavior, was conducted by Critical Mass Media among a sample of about 2,000 U.S. adults. The results were presented to marketers at the company’s AudioCon event in New York Wednesday. The company also uses it to train its on-air talent on how to address AI and find a middle ground between it taking jobs and being the most helpful tool.
“The truth is that the vast majority of consumers feel somewhere in between, and we want our hosts understanding and talking about that in between, making consumers comfortable with the fact that they will almost certainly be asked to use AI as a part of their job, that more and more of the apps and media that they consume will be powered by AI,” she said.
Overall, the survey found consumers deeply divided on most hot-button issues, ranging from the government’s COVID-19 response to the #MeToo movement to the death of Charlie Kirk.
“What was interesting about this is that a consumer’s political affiliation or what party they identified with was not the greatest predictor of how they answered these questions. Instead, what media they were fed algorithmically is the best predictor,” Fertick said.
The only observed event that Americans are mostly unified on is believing that the Epstein files are a cover-up, according to the survey, with 78 percent agreeing and only 22 percent believing that there’s nothing in the files.
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