Gen Z’s AI problem isn’t about AI
The generation that distrusts everything and everyone found one place to converse without judgement or consequence.
SOMERSET, ENGLAND, UK (JUNE 29, 2026) — You might say that Gen Z is the first generation that confronted the world of AI during their formative years.
People born between the years 1997 and 2012, who are now between the ages of 13 and 29, have a unique relationship to AI. When OpenAI first gave the public access to ChatGPT, Gen Z were children as young as 9, and adults as old as 25. Most were under 20.
And their relationship to AI is surprisingly conflicted, and in fact attended by a strange paradox.
Among all the identified generations, Gen Z is the most likely one to treat AI as a friend, confident, or advisor. Also, Gen Z is the generation most likely to fear, distrust, and actively sabotage it.
On the latter point, bad feelings about AI were bad from the start, and getting worse.
According to a Gallup survey conducted in April, Gen Zers who use AI every day are less excited about it than they were a year earlier, less hopeful about it, and more angry about it. Throughout the period of this declining esteem usage remain flat at around 50% (at least weekly).
Gen Z is a heavy user of a technology they increasingly resent.
How Gen Z usage is different
One-third of Gen Z users say that conversations with AI feel “as satisfying or more satisfying” than talking with real friends, according to a Common Sense Media survey conducted last year.
The same survey found that another one-third of Gen Zers say they’ve discussed serious or important issues with AI, even as half of them don’t trust it.
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The real crisis
At first glance, it appears that Gen Z’s relationship with AI represents something of a crisis. In other words, it represents a potential problem with how Gen Z looks at AI.
But the real problem is how Gen Z looks at humanity.
A Gallup/Walton Family Foundation finding published this month found that 45% of Gen Zers report lacking meaning, purpose, or both in their lives.
So while I trotted out statistics about the paradox of Gen Z, both mistrusting and over relying on AI, there are some other telling attributes of this generation.
According to a Gallup poll from 2023, Gen Z expresses the lowest trust in Congress, the presidency, the news, and large technology companies compared with all other generations.
I think it’s fair to assume that Gen Z distrusts the institutions where information comes from generally, more than other generations.
