Rapid News Brief — The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a poll Oct. 8, 2026, showing that 64% of U.S. adults think artificial intelligence is developing too quickly. The findings put worker protection and human control alongside the pace of development in the public debate over AI adoption.
Worker protection crosses party lines
About eight in 10 adults consider protecting U.S. workers and keeping AI under human control extremely or very important priorities for the federal government’s approach to the technology, according to AP-NORC. The center reports similar levels of support among Democrats and Republicans for those priorities.
The poll found that 8% think AI is developing too slowly. AP’s report puts the share describing the pace as about right at 27%. These answers concern perceptions of development in the United States, not the performance of a particular company’s product.
The survey measures opinion, not workplace outcomes
Researchers interviewed 2,140 adults Sept. 24–28 through NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel. The methodology describes 2,093 web interviews and 47 telephone interviews, conducted in English or Spanish. The overall margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level; subgroup margins are larger.
The findings do not establish how many jobs AI has eliminated, whether an individual deployment is safe or how employees at a specific employer feel. A national public-opinion survey should not be substituted for evidence about a company’s own workforce.
What business leaders can take from it
For employers, the operational implication is a communication question rather than a prediction of resistance: can people identify who reviews an AI-assisted decision and where accountability sits?
That is NextNow’s interpretation of the survey’s relevance, not a measured finding about corporate adoption. Leaders considering a rollout still need their own assessment of the task, its effects on employees and the review process. The poll supplies public context for that discussion, not proof that faster or slower implementation will produce a particular business result.