Research21 Oct 20262 min read

AI is mainstream now, and its users rank privacy above ease of use

About half of US adults now use AI chatbots, and 71% of all US adults expect AI to make their personal information less secure. AI users rank trust and privacy above ease of use, and companies are expanding their privacy programs because of AI.

Chart by Pew Research Center: 71% of US adults think AI will make their personal information less secure, 10% say it will make little difference, 3% say more secure, and 16% are not sure. — Chart: Pew Research Center

About half of US adults now use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024, and AI users rank trust and privacy above ease of use, two surveys from 2026 show. Companies are expanding their privacy programs because of AI, and the AI industry is answering with confidential computing.

About half of US adults use AI chatbots

Pew Research Center surveyed 5,119 US adults from 17 to 23 February 2026. About half of them use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024, and about a quarter use chatbots every day.

Menlo Ventures and Morning Consult surveyed 5,067 US adults in July 2026 and found that use is deepening: daily use of AI rose from 19% to 25% in a year. Of the people who use AI, 55% pay for at least one AI product.

Privacy outranks ease of use

In Pew's survey, 71% of US adults said the growing use of AI will make their personal information less secure, and 3% said it will make their information more secure.
In Menlo's survey, AI users ranked accuracy (45%), trustworthiness (40%), and security and privacy (36%) ahead of ease of use, which fell from 38% to 32%. "Trust is becoming the gatekeeper for consumer AI," Menlo wrote.
Of the Americans who do not use AI, 76% told Menlo they worry about data privacy.

Companies expand privacy programs because of AI

Cisco's 2026 Data and Privacy Benchmark Study surveyed 5,200 IT, technology, and security professionals with privacy duties in 12 markets. In the study, 90% of organizations said their privacy programs have expanded because of AI, and 95% said their privacy investments have helped them build loyalty and trust with their customers.

The industry answers with confidential computing

In confidential computing, a model runs inside a trusted execution environment (TEE), whose memory even the operator of the server cannot read. With a remote attestation, the TEE proves which software it runs, and the user's device can verify that attestation before it sends anything.

Between 14 September and 19 October 2026, Apple, NVIDIA, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft each made a move in confidential computing, as we report in Five weeks, seven giants. Open-weight models, which can run in TEEs, now outscore the closed flagships of early 2026 and trail the best closed models by about four months.

What it means for you

An AI chat holds what you are still thinking through, so where it runs matters as much as the model behind it.

Thinkr's private lane, the default, runs open-weight models in TEEs. Before your browser sends a word, it verifies the enclave's remote attestation; then every chat is encrypted on your device and decrypted only inside the enclave. You can try it free, with no account.