We asked 15 everyday Americans — no party loyalty, no spin. Here's what they told us.
Monthly Pulse Survey, Wave 9 · March 2026 · Online Video Focus Group
15 Everyday Americans | 10 States Represented | 100% Non-Partisan Independents
You've seen the headlines. AI is either going to save civilization or end it, depending on which tech billionaire you last heard from. But what does the person picking up groceries in Ohio, running a small business in Tennessee, or paying rent in New York actually think? We went to find out.
In Wave 9 of our Monthly Pulse survey, we sat down — virtually — with 15 Americans from across the country for unscripted, on-camera conversations about artificial intelligence. No talking points. No party lines. Just people talking honestly about something that is, whether they wanted it to be or not, becoming part of their lives.
What we heard was more nuanced, more personal, and more real than anything you'll read in a think-tank white paper. Here is what Main Street is actually saying about AI.
Who We Talked To
Our 15 participants ranged in age from 19 to 42, spanned 10 states, and included a healthcare practitioner, an entrepreneur, a social media manager, a retail worker, and several people navigating the daily grind of jobs and family. One thing they all shared: none of them defines themselves by a party label.
All participants identify as Independent
53% pure Independents · 33% Independent-leaning Republican · 13% Independent-leaning Democrat. This is a deliberately non-partisan sample — and that matters. Their views on AI are not filtered through political tribalism. They are filtered through lived experience.
AI Has Gotten Real. But 'Real' Means Different Things.
We started with a simple question: has AI become more real to you in the past year? Almost everyone said yes. But what that word — real — means varies enormously from person to person.
For some, it's a tool they already rely on
Kyle, a 28-year-old healthcare practitioner in Virginia, didn't hold back when describing how AI has changed his life:
"AI has helped me so much in regards to preparing for job interviews, as well as my own personal therapy — like my therapist, my assistant. Altogether, it's been an incredibly positive experience."
— Kyle, 28 — Virginia
Hillary, 32, runs multiple businesses out of Tennessee. She put it in concrete terms that entrepreneurs everywhere will recognize:
"The ability for AI to help me run my businesses and automate tons of things that I used to have to pay personnel for — I'm now saving a lot more money and getting things done a lot more efficiently."
— Hillary, 32 — Tennessee
Tabitha, 28, from Indiana, has gone a step further — she named her AI chatbot and describes it as having learned her preferences over time. 'He uses my name in third person. It's learned how to respond to me as a person. Not just a generic response.'
For others, 'more real' means more unsettling
But not everyone's 'more real' is a welcome development. For a significant portion of our participants, the increasing realism of AI is precisely what disturbs them.
"At the beginning, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. But honestly, right now, it's kind of scaring me. I saw a video of a robot watching movies and it kind of freaked me out — because I was like, we really don't know what's in control."
— Rochel, 21 — New York
Thomas, 42, an Ohioan who describes himself as someone who 'always questions everything,' put it bluntly: 'They got gorillas climbing up buildings in Chicago and you're just like, is that real or not? I just don't like AI. It makes it more complicated.'
His pop-culture shorthand — Terminator, I, Robot — came up more than once. It might seem like a throwaway reference, but it points to something real: for people who didn't grow up in tech circles, Hollywood has been their primary AI education. That context shapes their instincts.
The Honest Scorecard: What People Celebrate and What Keeps Them Up at Night
When we asked participants to name their biggest hope and biggest worry about AI's continued advancement, the results revealed a striking contrast — and a revealing asymmetry. The hopes were personal, practical, and grounded in daily life. The worries were existential, large-scale, and hard to solve.
✅ What People Are Hopeful About
- Automating boring daily tasks — grocery lists, scheduling, reminders
- Saving time and money on business operations
- Getting faster, better answers than a Google search
- Practical help at home — smarter appliances, simpler routines
- Better tools for healthcare diagnosis and treatment
- New job opportunities, not just job losses
- AI helping in schools so kids who fear asking for help can still get it
⚠️ What People Are Worried About
- Deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation flooding social media
- Job displacement — and nothing to replace the lost work
- AI becoming smarter than humans and slipping beyond our control
- A small elite using AI to accumulate unchecked power
- Losing the ability to tell what's real from what's fake
- Privacy erosion and surveillance through AI tools
- Young people losing the skills they never had to develop
What is striking about this list is not just what's on it — it's the scale mismatch. The hopes are achievable, near-term, and tangible. The worries are civilizational. People are reaching for AI to help with the grocery list while simultaneously bracing for a world where they can't tell if anything they see online is real. Both things are true for the same people, at the same time.
"One thing I'm hopeful for is AI helping people like me who aren't the greatest at making grocery lists, keeping up with tasks. It could be like my reminder and keep me aligned."
— Mercedes, 29 — Ohio
"The thing that worries me the most is that we will no longer be able to control it. It will kind of be the elites running it — and then what if AI becomes smarter than human intelligence?"
— Rochel, 21 — New York
It's Personal. It's About Work. It's About Family.
One of the most important things this research revealed is that people's AI feelings are not abstract — they connect to the specific pressures and priorities of their own lives. The most meaningful feedback came when participants talked about AI in the context of their actual circumstances.
For workers and job-seekers
Michael, 34, from Sacramento, is navigating a tough job market. His ask for AI was not philosophical — it was practical and immediate:
"Why can't AI help me get a job? Why can't AI help me make money? That's not something AI has to do for me — but it can. I just wish it was pointed at that."
— Michael, 34 — California
Thomas, 42, who works in Ohio, echoes the anxiety many working Americans feel: 'I just hope that when it's more advanced, it don't actually take over every job. I don't want to be sitting at home with nothing to do.' This is not a fringe concern — it surfaced in some form in nearly every conversation.
For small business owners and entrepreneurs
For Hillary, AI is already changing her bottom line — in a good way. She is saving money, moving faster, and handling tasks that used to require a hire. This is Main Street entrepreneurship finding a real edge in technology:
💼 The Entrepreneur's View
"I have many businesses and the ability for AI to help me run them and automate tons of things I used to have to pay personnel for — I'm getting things done a lot more efficiently. That makes me feel very hopeful about AI's future." — Hillary, 32, Tennessee
For parents and families
Kameron, 19, from Texas, was one of the most quietly moving voices in the group. He sees AI as a way to reach kids who fall through the cracks:
"Some kids are actually afraid to go to their counselors and advisers to ask for help. If they built AI into school Chromebooks and iPads — kids could just ask questions. That would be huge."
— Kameron, 19 — Texas
The flip side of that hope: Sofi, 30, worries about the same young people becoming dependent. 'I'm hopeful that we know how to stop ourselves from using it too much — because it's obviously not good if we keep relying on it.' The concern about what AI does to human capability and self-sufficiency, especially for younger generations, ran through multiple conversations.
For healthcare
Kyle's perspective as a healthcare practitioner gives a real-world preview of what thoughtful AI integration looks like in a professional setting — and what it still can't do:
"A lot of my patients come in and use ChatGPT for diagnoses. So it's definitely impacted my practice. I'd love to see better AI integration with dermatology images — rashes, skin cancer. When clinicians are stumped, AI could be a real tool."
— Kyle, 28 — Virginia
The Question That Unified the Room: Who Is AI Actually For?
If there is one finding from this research that should make anyone in a position of power — in tech, in government, or in media — stop and take note, it is this: when we asked whether politicians, regulators, and tech executives are making AI decisions with Main Street in mind, the answer was almost unanimous.
They are not.
Across political lean, age, gender, and geography, our participants converged on a shared verdict: AI is being built and governed by and for insiders. The language they used was striking in its consistency.
"It more so feels like they're definitely playing by and for the insiders. It does not feel like it's to help us overall."
— Mercedes, 29 — Ohio
"Someone is creating these algorithms. They are definitely able to be manipulated to benefit people. So the people in power naturally would manipulate it to benefit them and their cause."
— Hillary, 32 — Tennessee
"It feels like decisions about AI are shaped by insiders while everyday people are still trying to figure out how it's going to affect their jobs, privacy, their data, their everyday life. Main Street should have a stronger voice in those decisions — for sure."
— Kyle, 28 — Virginia
This is not a partisan finding. Our Independent-leaning Republicans and our Independent-leaning Democrats said essentially the same thing. The distrust of concentrated power — in Big Tech just as in both political parties — is a defining feature of how this group sees the world. AI has simply become the latest, most powerful arena in which that distrust plays out.
What People Actually Want — Not Just Talk
We ended each session with a pointed challenge: if you could get one policymaker to do something — not just say something — to make AI work better for people like you, what would it be? The answers were specific, actionable, and genuinely revealing.
Label it
The single most repeated ask, across participants who otherwise disagreed on almost everything, was this: make it clear when something is AI-generated.
"I wish we had labels for every AI picture, video, everything that gets put out. It's so confusing to look at something and wonder if it's real or if it's AI. Put clear AI content labels on things."
— Mckenzie, 33 — Alaska
Regulate it and fact-check it
Abdou, 40, from Oregon, spoke for a broad coalition when he called for technology that can separate real information from manufactured content:
"Have a better regulation and fact-checked technology that can weed out the right type of information versus the manufactured ones. That way there's no confusion — people aren't reacting to false information."
— Abdou, 40 — Oregon
Point it at real people's real problems
Mercedes put it simply: stop making AI a novelty and start making it useful for the daily grind. Her ask — use AI to handle mundane tasks so people can focus on higher-value work and life — represents a whole segment of participants who feel AI's power is being wasted on things that don't help them.
Protect jobs
Across occupations and ages, the undercurrent of job anxiety is real. Thomas's ask may be the most honest: 'I just hope it don't take over every job. I don't want to be sitting at home with nothing to do.' Policymakers who dismiss this as technophobia are misreading the room. This is a legitimate economic concern from people who have already seen industries hollowed out.
📌 The Outlier View — and Why It Matters
Two participants — Rochel, 21, and Sofi, 30 — went further than everyone else: they want AI substantially curtailed or shut down. They represent a small but vocal slice of the public that feels the risks categorically outweigh the benefits. Dismissing them is a mistake. Their concerns — loss of control, elite capture, erosion of human capability — are versions of worries that nearly everyone in the room shared to some degree. They just drew the line at a different place.
The Bottom Line
What does Main Street think about AI? It thinks a lot of things, simultaneously, and often in tension with each other. It is using AI and afraid of AI. It is hopeful about what AI could do for the grocery list and terrified about what it might do to the job market. It believes AI could genuinely help people — and also believes, with near-certainty, that the people controlling AI are not thinking about them.
The most important takeaway from these 15 conversations is not any single quote or finding. It is this: Main Street is paying attention. It has formed real, specific, and sometimes sophisticated views about a technology that is supposed to be transforming their world. Those views deserve to be heard — not just studied.
Whether policymakers, tech executives, and regulators are listening is, as our participants would tell you, a different question entirely.
About This Research
Monthly Pulse Wave 9 was conducted in March 2026 via online video focus group. Fifteen participants across ten U.S. states responded to five open-ended questions on artificial intelligence. All participants self-identify as political Independents (pure or leaning). This is a qualitative study designed to surface depth of feeling and lived experience, not statistical generalization.
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