Americans’ Confidence In Big Tech Plunges To Record Low

Interesting artificial intelligence, big tech, gallup poll, technology admin July 17, 2026 0 Comments

Americans’ Confidence In Big Tech Plunges To Record Low

Americans’ confidence in big technology companies has plunged to a new record low, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

Gallup’s latest survey shows that just 20% of respondents felt confident in major tech companies, marking a new low. Confidence in large tech companies has declined steadily from the 32% recorded when Gallup first asked the survey question in 2020, according to the poll. (RELATED: Tech Giant Dredges Up Major Player From Great Recession Saga To Be AI Watchdog)

Of those surveyed, 41% said they felt very little or no confidence in large technology companies, marking an increase from 32% in 2025. Moreover, 38% of respondents said they have some confidence in big tech companies, per the poll.

Some individuals have expressed concerns in recent years over how big tech companies are using people’s personal data. A 2023 Pew Research Center poll found that some 67% of U.S. adults said they understand little to nothing about what technology companies are doing with their personal data.

Additionally, many Americans have publicly opposed the rollout of new artificial intelligence (AI) data center projects across the country. At least 75 U.S. data center projects worth approximately $130 billion were delayed or blocked during the first quarter of 2026 amid local opposition, according to estimates from Data Center Watch.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who has previously been an outspoken critic of big tech, claimed in a June 7 op-ed published in The Free Press that major technology companies want “technocratic oligarchy.”

“Behind every fight on jobs, data centers, or safety lies a more basic question of who gets to set the rules,” Hawley wrote. “We know the answer favored by Big Tech. It wants technocratic oligarchy. But a country governed by experts is not a republic. AI is, in the end, a question of self-government. It cannot be left to them.”

Gallup’s survey was based on telephone interviews conducted by ReconMR from June 1-15, among a random sample of 1,001 U.S. adults. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.