Trust in AI far higher in China than West, poll shows

According to a survey, China’s population has a higher degree of confidence in artificial intelligence than its peers in the US and other Western nations.

According to the Edelman poll released on Tuesday, 87 percent of people in China said they trusted AI, compared to 67 percent in Brazil, 32 percent in the United States, 36 percent in the UK, and 39 percent in Germany.

More than seven out of ten Chinese respondents predicted that AI would help to address a variety of social issues, including polarization, mental illness, and climate change.

Only one-third of Americans predicted that AI would help to end globalization and poverty, but only half of Americans predicted that it would help to address climate issues.

Only 17 percent of Americans responded, according to the survey, while 54 percent of Chinese said they were more in favor of using AI.

Young people had the highest level of trust, but it was still far lower in Western nations.

40% of Americans in that age group said they had faith in the technology, compared to 80% of Chinese 18-34 years old.

This divergence presents a double challenge for businesses and policymakers, according to Edelman Senior Vice President Gray Grossman’s report that comes with the survey.

The key to maintaining optimism in high-trust markets is to use responsible deployment and straightforward evidence of benefit. The challenge in low-trust markets is to rekindle trust in the institutions that support technology.

The survey’s findings come as businesses in both China and the US compete for control of technology.

Chinese companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek have made significant inroads in recent months with “open” language models that lower customer costs, despite the US still being widely believed to still have an edge in producing the most powerful AI.

Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, revealed last month that the short-term rental service preferred Alibaba’s Qwen over OpenAI’s ChatGPT.