About half of U.S. adults say they never use AI chatbots, and most non-users do not expect to try one in the next year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis published Friday.
Lack of interest was the most common major reason among non-users, cited by 60%. Concerns about how personal information would be used followed at 54%, while 45% cited doubts about chatbot accuracy as a major reason.
Pew asked non-users about five possible reasons, and respondents could identify more than one. The results describe adults’ stated reasons for avoiding tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot; they do not measure whether those tools are accurate or how companies use personal data.
Interest, privacy and know-how
Including people who called each factor either a major or minor reason, 83% of non-users said they were not interested, 79% raised privacy concerns and 76% questioned accuracy. Fifty-five percent said not knowing how to use chatbots played some part.
Not knowing how was a major reason for 29% of non-users, well below lack of interest or privacy. Only 3% called concern about others judging them a major reason, although 14% listed it as either a major or minor factor.
Two-thirds of non-users said they were not too likely or not at all likely to use a chatbot in the next 12 months. Another 16% said they were somewhat likely and 5% said they were very or extremely likely; 12% were unsure. Pew said 40% of non-users placed themselves in the “not at all likely” group.
Use varies sharply by age
Across all adults surveyed, 51% said they had never used an AI chatbot. That included 77% of adults 65 and older and 58% of those ages 50 to 64. The non-user shares were 39% among adults ages 30 to 49 and 34% among those 18 to 29.
Pew also found a lower reported non-user share among Asian adults, at 29%, than among White, Black and Hispanic adults, whose shares ranged from 50% to 54%. Pew notes that its estimate for Asian adults represents English speakers only; the group results should not be treated as local New York estimates.
How the survey was conducted
The findings draw on 5,119 U.S. adults surveyed Feb. 17-23, 2026, through Pew’s American Trends Panel. Participants were recruited through a nationally representative, randomly selected panel, and interviews were conducted online or by live telephone in English and Spanish, according to the survey methodology.
Pew reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points for the full sample. That figure does not apply unchanged to the smaller group of chatbot non-users or to age and racial subgroups. The October analysis draws from a broader study Pew released in June.
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