Most US voters say Trump and Congress aren’t taking AI risks seriously, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

Most US voters think President Donald Trump’s administration and Congress are not taking the risks of artificial intelligence seriously enough and want the government to write new regulations for the technology, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll reported by Reuters on October 7.

In the six-day survey, which ended on Monday, 57% of registered voters — including a third of self-identified Republicans — said the Trump administration has not taken AI risks seriously enough or at all. Some 54% said the same about Congress.

AI has become a significant campaign issue ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, when control of Congress is up for grabs. Some 62% of voters said the technology could get out of control and risk the future of humankind, roughly the same share as in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in August last year. And 84% saw AI as a threat to American workers — compared with 60% who said the same of illegal immigration, 74% of competition from foreign workers and 73% of large corporations.

A bipartisan majority, including 80% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans, supported stricter government regulation of AI. Some 56% of voters backed limits on building the data centers that power AI, including 69% of Democrats, 55% of independents and 43% of Republicans. The share who think the US government should not use AI to determine the target of a military strike rose to 57% from 49% in an August 2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Reuters noted that Trump has repeatedly voiced support for AI and data-center construction as vital to US competitiveness, and often says the US industry would fall behind Chinese rivals when asked why his government has not set limits on the technology. In a statement to Reuters, a White House official pointed to Trump’s new task force, which he said is in charge of ensuring that “America continues to lead the world” on the technology, and said the administration’s priority is “a booming economy so that workers have many opportunities.”

Trump said last week that executives from six leading AI developers — Nvidia, SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Alphabet’s Google — had agreed to a set of voluntary safety principles, but the agreement includes no stated consequences for non-compliance. Congress has so far failed to agree on legislation setting guardrails for AI, and lawmakers are expected to be away from Washington until after the midterms.

The online, nationwide poll gathered responses from 4,506 US adults, including 3,526 registered voters, and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, Reuters said. Ipsos has published the survey methodology.