Poll finds 53% of Americans highly concerned about AI's environmental impact

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago finds that 53% of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence, up from 41% last year.

Democrats are driving much of the increase. About two-thirds of Democrats now say they are highly concerned about AI’s environmental effects, up from about half in 2025. By contrast, roughly half of independents and about four in ten Republicans express high concern.

The poll also shows broad wariness about the rapid growth of data centers that power AI. About six in ten Americans support limiting construction of new data centers, and a majority are highly concerned about their impact on electricity prices and water supply in local communities. About two-thirds favor requiring data centers to use clean energy sources such as wind or solar. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report projects that data centers could account for 11.8% of U.S. electricity consumption by 2030.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted July 6-24, 2026, among 3,424 adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.