UK: Understanding AI – sentiment for people and businesses

• Public awareness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) appears to have increased over the past year; 72% of adults could give at least a partial explanation of AI in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) collected in May 2023 compared with 56% in the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation’s Public Attitudes to Data and AI Tracker Survey (PADAI) collected in June to July 2022.
• When it comes to day-to-day use of AI, 5% of adults reported using AI a lot, 45% a little and 50% not at all in the month before data collection on the OPN.
• When asked about their expectations of the impact of AI on the UK, from very negative (0) to very positive (10); 32% of adults reported neutral impact (5) with slightly higher proportions of people giving positive responses (6-10) than negative (0-4).
• Our Business and Insights Conditions Survey (BICS) showed that approximately one in six businesses (16%) are currently implementing at least one of the AI applications asked about in the survey.
• Of those businesses currently using or planning to use one of the specified AI applications, the most common reasons for doing so was improving cybersecurity (35%) and creating efficiencies (35%).

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