# How AI is changing society: what the evidence shows in 2026 > How AI is changing society in 2026: adoption, jobs, deepfakes, privacy, energy and the rules now applying, with what is measured and what is projected. - URL: https://computese.com/how-ai-is-slowly-forming-society/ - Author: Duong Quan Nguyen, CEO, Computese - Published: 2024-10-25 - Updated: 2026-09-25 - Topics: AI & automation ## In short - AI use is mainstream for people but not yet for most businesses: 49% of US adults used AI chatbots in February 2026 (Pew), while official statistics count about one business in five using AI in the EU and in Canada. - Effects on work are early and concentrated: the ILO puts one in four workers in jobs with some generative AI exposure, and the 2026 AI Index finds falling employment for software developers aged 22 to 25, not yet large losses overall. - Trust in information already has binding rules: since August 2, 2026 the EU requires deepfake labels and machine-readable marks on AI output, and C2PA Content Credentials give a file a signed, checkable history. - Data centers used about 415 TWh, around 1.5% of the world's electricity, in 2024. The IEA projects roughly 950 TWh by 2030, a scenario with a wide range around it, and the strain lands first on local grids. - As of September 2026 the EU AI Act applies but its high-risk rules wait until December 2027, the Council of Europe AI treaty is not in force, Canada has no federal AI law, and US federal policy runs mainly on executive orders while states pass their own laws. AI is changing society through fast-spreading everyday use, early shifts in who gets hired, harder questions about whether a voice or video is real, more automated decisions about people, and rising electricity demand from data centers. Most effects are still early and uneven, and most of the rules that answer them began applying in 2025 and 2026. This guide keeps two things apart: what has been measured, and what someone projects. Each figure names who produced it and when. It covers adoption, work, information and trust, schools and health care, decisions about people, privacy, energy, and the rules in force as of September 2026. The tools themselves are covered in our guide to [AI assistants in 2026](https://computese.com/ai-assistants-are-set-to-revolutionize-daily-life/). ## How many people and businesses use AI in 2026 **People.** In a Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 US adults in February 2026, [49% said they use AI chatbots](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/americans-and-ai-2026-chatbots-smart-devices-and-views-on-impact/) such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, up from 33% in 2024, and about a quarter use them every day. Searching for information and tasks at work were the most common uses; 13% use chatbots to get news and 10% for emotional support. Worldwide, Stanford's [2026 AI Index](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report), published in April 2026, estimates that generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than the personal computer or the internet. Adoption tracks income per head, with exceptions: Singapore is at 61%, while the United States ranks 24th at 28.3% on the Index's measure. That figure sits well below Pew's because the two use different methods; Pew asks whether a person ever uses a chatbot at all. **Businesses.** Here the numbers disagree by a factor of four, and the reason is who gets counted: | Measure | Who is counted | Latest figure | Source and date | | -------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------- | | Organizations that have adopted AI | Surveyed organizations | 88% in 2025 | Stanford AI Index, April 2026 | | Enterprises using at least one AI technology | All EU enterprises with 10 or more employees | 20.0% in 2025, up from 13.5% in 2024 | Eurostat, December 2025 | | Businesses using AI to produce goods or deliver services | Canadian businesses in the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions | 19.2% in the 12 months before mid-2026, up from 6.1% in 2024 | Statistics Canada, June 2026 | The official statistics are the better guide to the economy as a whole, because statistics offices design their surveys to represent the business population; Eurostat's covers every EU enterprise with 10 or more employees. They also show how uneven use is. [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20251211-2) finds 42.0% of enterprises using AI in Denmark and 5.2% in Romania. [Statistics Canada](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2026010-eng.htm) finds 27.8% of businesses with 100 or more employees using AI, and 40.0% of all businesses saying AI is not relevant to them. The most common business uses are unglamorous: analyzing written language in the EU, data and text analytics in Canada. AI agents, which act across several tools on their own, were in use at single-digit shares of organizations in nearly every business function in 2025, according to the [AI Index's economy chapter](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/economy). ## What AI is doing to work, so far The evidence on jobs comes in three kinds, and they are easy to confuse. Each is covered in depth, with what to do about it, in [the impact of AI on white-collar jobs](https://computese.com/the-impact-of-ai-on-white-collar-jobs/). - **Exposure, a projection of what could change.** The International Labour Organization's [refined global index](https://www.ilo.org/publications/generative-ai-and-jobs-refined-global-index-occupational-exposure), published on May 20, 2025, finds one in four workers worldwide in an occupation with some exposure to generative AI, and 3.3% of global employment in the highest-exposure group. Exposure is higher in high-income countries (34% of employment) than in low-income ones (11%), and higher for women: 4.7% of women's employment sits in the highest group, against 2.4% of men's. The ILO's conclusion is that transformation of jobs, not replacement, is the most likely outcome. - **Measured change in employment.** The 2026 AI Index reports that employment of software developers aged 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% since 2024, and that the effects are concentrated in hiring pipelines and the youngest workers in exposed occupations. Large-scale job losses have not yet shown up in overall employment data. - **Employer expectations, a forecast.** In the surveys the Index reports, one-third of organizations expect AI to reduce their workforce in the coming year, and almost half expect little or no change. Where firms have changed something, Statistics Canada can say what: of businesses that used AI, 44.4% changed their training or staffing practices, and 32.0% gave existing employees AI-related training. Productivity studies summarized by the AI Index find the largest gains in structured, measurable work, 14% to 15% in customer support and 26% in software development, with smaller gains where tasks need deeper reasoning. For what this means for developers in particular, see [AI and careers in computer science](https://computese.com/the-future-of-ai-what-lies-ahead-in-computer-science/). ## Deepfakes, cloned voices and trust in what you see Generative models can produce images, audio and video that resemble real people. The EU AI Act calls such content a deep fake when it would falsely appear authentic. The harm shows up in elections, harassment and fraud. Documented AI incidents of all kinds are rising too: the AI Incident Database recorded 362 in 2025, up from 233 in 2024, according to the AI Index. In January 2024, voters in New Hampshire received robocalls in a cloned voice that sounded like President Biden, telling them to skip the state's primary. The US Federal Communications Commission answered with a [declaratory ruling](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-17A1.pdf) released on February 8, 2024: the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's limits on an "artificial or prerecorded voice" cover AI technologies that generate human voices. A robocall that plays a cloned voice therefore needs the called person's prior express consent, unless it is an emergency or exempt. ![A short voice recording passes through a gear that produces an orange cloned waveform, which an automated dialer sends out along dashed lines to a row of ringing phones.](https://computese.com/images/blog/how-ai-is-slowly-forming-society/voice-clone.1f4c1a0094-1536.webp) *The FCC's ruling targets the last step: a call that plays an AI-generated voice needs the called person's prior consent.* Intimate deepfakes are now covered by a federal law in the US. The [TAKE IT DOWN Act](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ12/pdf/PLAW-119publ12.pdf), enacted on May 19, 2025, makes it a crime to knowingly publish an AI-made intimate image of an identifiable adult without consent where it is meant to cause, or causes, harm, with separate rules where the person is a minor. The law calls such an image a digital forgery. Covered platforms had one year, until May 19, 2026, to set up a notice-and-removal process, and must take a reported image down within 48 hours of a valid request. In the EU, the AI Omnibus adds a ban on AI systems that generate non-consensual sexual content or child sexual abuse material, such as "nudification" apps, [from December 2026](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai). The broadest rules are the EU's. Since August 2, 2026, the [AI Act's transparency obligations](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-starts-enforcing-ai-act-rules-and-new-transparency-requirements-2-august) apply: chatbots must tell people they are dealing with a machine, deepfakes must be labelled, and AI-generated or altered content must carry machine-readable marks so it can be detected. Under [Article 50](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024R1689), the marking duty falls on the providers of the AI system and the labelling duty on deployers, the organizations and professionals that use such a system. On July 31, 2026, the Commission published a first list of more than 180 organizations that have signed its Code of Practice on transparency of AI-generated content. Deepfake fraud aimed at businesses is covered in [the dual role of AI in cybersecurity](https://computese.com/the-dual-role-of-ai/). ## How content provenance works: C2PA and Content Credentials A visible label only helps if whoever publishes a file adds it. Provenance works from the other end: the file carries its own verifiable history. The open standard comes from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), its records are called Content Credentials, and [version 2.4 of the technical specification](https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/2.4/specs/C2PA_Specification.html) is the current one as of September 2026. 1. **A tool writes a manifest.** A camera, phone or editing app records assertions about the file (the tool used, the actions taken), gathers them into a claim, and signs the claim. 2. **A hard binding ties it to the bytes.** The manifest includes a cryptographic hash of the content, so it matches this file and no other. A file changed without a new manifest fails validation. 3. **Each edit adds a manifest.** An editor that crops or retouches the file adds its own manifest and references the earlier one, so the chain shows the history. 4. **Soft bindings survive re-encoding.** A fingerprint computed from the content, or an invisible watermark, lets a validator match a copy in a different resolution or format, and find a manifest in a provenance store if it was stripped from the file. ![A photo from a camera carries a small signed record joined to it by an orange chain link; a laptop edits the photo and adds a second record, and a phone checks both.](https://computese.com/images/blog/how-ai-is-slowly-forming-society/provenance.22c6f7bda2-1536.webp) *Each tool that edits the file signs its own record, so the history can be checked instead of taken on trust.* > [!NOTE] > A valid Content Credential shows where a file came from. A missing one proves nothing: the specification itself allows for manifests being removed from files, and a file made with a tool that does not support C2PA never had one. Law has started to require provenance. California's [AI Transparency Act](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&division=8.&title=&part=&chapter=25.&article=), operative since August 2, 2026, requires generative AI providers with over 1,000,000 monthly users to embed latent disclosures in the images, video and audio their systems create and to offer a free detection tool. From January 1, 2027, large online platforms (over 2,000,000 monthly users) must detect provenance data that follows widely adopted specifications, show it to users and not knowingly strip it. From January 1, 2028, makers of new cameras and phones sold in California must, among other things, let users add a latent disclosure to what they capture. ## AI in classrooms and clinics Four out of five US high school and college students now use AI for schoolwork, most often for research, essay editing and brainstorming, according to the [AI Index's education chapter](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/education). Policy lags behind: only half of middle and high schools have AI policies, and just 6% of teachers say those policies are clear. Some countries now teach AI formally; China and the United Arab Emirates both mandated AI education starting with the 2025-26 school year. The Index also notes recent evidence that heavy reliance on AI may carry long-term learning penalties that slow skill development. In health care, software that drafts clinical notes from a patient visit spread widely in 2025, and physicians across several hospital systems reported up to 83% less time spent writing notes, according to [Stanford HAI's summary of the Index](https://hai.stanford.edu/news/inside-the-ai-index-12-takeaways-from-the-2026-report); wearables, health apps and chatbots are covered in [AI in health and wellness](https://computese.com/how-ai-is-transforming-health-and-wellness/). ## Automated decisions about people When a model screens job applicants, scores credit or checks eligibility for public benefits, its errors land on individuals. How to measure and reduce that bias is covered in [fairness in AI decision-making](https://computese.com/improving-fairness-in-ai-decision-making/). What changed in 2026 is the law around it. - **European Union.** The AI Act treats AI used in employment, education, access to essential services such as credit, law enforcement, migration and the administration of justice as high-risk. After the AI Omnibus, those rules apply from December 2, 2027, and require risk assessment and mitigation, high-quality datasets to minimize discriminatory outcomes, activity logs, documentation and human oversight before such a system can go on the market. AI inside regulated products such as machinery, toys and lifts follows in August 2028. - **Colorado.** [SB 26-189](https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb26-189), signed on May 14, 2026, repealed and re-enacted the state's 2024 AI law around automated decision-making technology used in consequential decisions about education, employment, housing, lending, insurance, health care and government services. From January 1, 2027, developers must give the businesses that deploy their systems documentation of intended uses, training data categories and known limitations. Consumers get notice at the point of interaction, a plain-language description of the technology's role within 30 days of an adverse decision, and the right to request meaningful human review. ## Privacy and surveillance: face recognition and personal data In Pew's February 2026 survey, a majority of Americans said they think AI will put their personal information at risk. Face recognition is where that worry has turned into the sharpest rules, because it can identify people who never chose to take part. - **European Union.** Since February 2, 2025, the AI Act has banned untargeted scraping of the internet or CCTV footage to build face recognition databases, emotion recognition in workplaces and schools, and biometric categorization to infer protected characteristics. It also bans real-time remote biometric identification by police in publicly accessible spaces, except where strictly necessary to search for victims of abduction or trafficking and missing persons, to prevent an imminent threat to life or a terrorist attack, or to locate suspects of serious crimes. - **United States.** In December 2023 the Federal Trade Commission [banned Rite Aid](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without) from using face recognition for surveillance for five years. The FTC said the system, used in hundreds of stores, falsely tagged customers, particularly women and people of colour, as shoplifters. - **Canada.** In February 2021, the federal privacy commissioner and three provincial counterparts [found](https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/investigations/investigations-into-businesses/2021/pipeda-2021-001/) that Clearview AI had no appropriate purpose for scraping images of millions of people in Canada, among over 3 billion images worldwide, into a face recognition tool, and that the practice put members of the public under ongoing mass surveillance. ## How much electricity AI uses Every chatbot answer or generated video runs on servers in a data center, and AI work runs mainly on accelerated servers, which carry GPUs or similar chips. The IEA's [Energy and AI report](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/b8a83930-5c77-4da7-b795-270ab6a6c272/EnergyandAI.pdf) (April 2025) projects their electricity use to grow 30% a year in its Base Case, against 9% for conventional servers. Data centers also need cooling and backup power, and they cluster: nearly half of US data center capacity sits in five regional clusters, and an AI-focused data center can draw as much electricity as an aluminum smelter. That is why local grids feel the strain long before global totals look large. ![Requests from laptops and phones flow into a data center whose orange rack of accelerated servers draws power over transmission lines from a power plant, while roof units release heat.](https://computese.com/images/blog/how-ai-is-slowly-forming-society/data-center.f890bded6d-1536.webp) *The IEA expects consumption by AI-focused data centers to triple by 2030, much faster than data centers as a whole.* The totals, with their status: | Figure | Value | Measured or projected | Source | | ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ | | Data center electricity use, 2024 | About 415 TWh, around 1.5% of global electricity | Estimate | IEA, Energy and AI (April 2025) | | Data center electricity use, 2025 | About 485 TWh | Estimate | IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026) | | Data center electricity use, 2030 (Base Case) | About 950 TWh, around 3% of global electricity | Projection, with a range of cases | IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026) | | Share of global electricity demand growth to 2030 | Less than 10% | Projection | IEA (2025 and 2026) | Efficiency and demand pull in different directions. According to the IEA's [2026 follow-up](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/3179f7f8-01f6-4dd6-bffa-c9f7b73f1dc9/KeyQuestionsonEnergyandAI.pdf), energy per AI task has fallen by at least an order of magnitude a year recently, and a simple text query now typically uses less electricity than running a television for the same time. But video generation, reasoning and agentic tasks can use hundreds or thousands of times more energy per query than simple text generation, so totals keep rising, and consumption by AI-focused data centers triples by 2030 in the IEA's projection. The 2030 figure is a Base Case; the 2025 report bracketed it with Lift-Off, High Efficiency and Headwinds cases that reflect uncertainty in efficiency, AI uptake and energy sector bottlenecks. ## AI regulation as of September 2026 | Jurisdiction | Instrument | Status as of September 2026 | | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | European Union | [AI Act](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai) (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), amended by the [AI Omnibus](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/ai-omnibus-enters-force), in force since July 27, 2026 | In force since August 1, 2024. Bans and AI literacy since February 2, 2025; general-purpose AI rules since August 2, 2025; transparency rules and enforcement since August 2, 2026. High-risk rules from December 2, 2027 (sensitive uses) and August 2, 2028 (regulated products). Nudification ban from December 2026. | | Council of Europe | [Framework Convention on AI](https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=signatures-by-treaty&treatynum=225) (CETS No. 225) | Opened for signature on September 5, 2024. Signed by 20 states, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, and by the EU. Ratified only by the EU, on May 15, 2026. Not in force: it needs five ratifications, including three by Council of Europe members. | | Canada | No federal AI statute | [Bill C-27](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-27), which contained the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, died when the parliamentary session ended on January 6, 2025. [Bill C-36](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-36), a privacy bill sponsored by the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, was introduced on June 15, 2026 and is at second reading. | | United States, federal | Executive orders; the TAKE IT DOWN Act | [EO 14179](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-01-31/pdf/2025-02172.pdf) (January 23, 2025) set a policy of removing barriers to AI and ordered a review of actions taken under the revoked EO 14110. [EO 14365](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-16/pdf/2025-23092.pdf) (December 11, 2025) directed the Attorney General to set up an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws, and calls for a national standard, set with Congress, that would forbid conflicting state laws. | | United States, states | Colorado SB 26-189; California [SB 53](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53) and the AI Transparency Act | Colorado's developer duties start January 1, 2027. California's Transparency in Frontier AI Act, signed September 29, 2025, requires large frontier developers to publish a frontier AI framework, creates a channel for reporting critical safety incidents and protects whistleblowers. The AI Transparency Act has applied since August 2, 2026. | Public opinion in the United States leans toward more regulation, not less. In Pew's February 2026 survey, 40% of US adults expected AI to have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years and 16% a positive one. In [Pew's June 2026 survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/18/young-adults-in-the-us-are-increasingly-wary-of-ai-concerned-it-will-take-jobs/), 52% said they were more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021; among adults under 30 it was 55%, a majority for the first time. In the survey data in the [AI Index's public opinion chapter](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/public-opinion), 41% of Americans said federal AI regulation will not go far enough, against 27% who said it will go too far, and the United States reported the lowest trust in its own government to regulate AI of any country surveyed: 31%, against a global average of 54%. For an organization deploying AI, the practical work is similar whichever rule applies: know which systems touch people, test them, and keep a person responsible for consequential decisions. Our [AI & automation service](https://computese.com/services/ai-automation/) organizes risks and findings by the NIST AI RMF's four functions (Govern, Map, Measure and Manage), builds in EU AI Act transparency duties such as telling people they are talking to a machine, and does not build systems that decide about people, such as hiring or credit, without human review. ## How to read claims about AI and society Most confusion about AI's social impact comes from mixing kinds of evidence. Four questions sort most claims: | Ask | Why it matters | Example from this guide | | ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Is it measured or projected? | Exposure indices and scenarios describe what could happen | ILO exposure (one worker in four) versus measured employment change | | Who was counted? | Survey respondents are not the whole population | 88% of surveyed organizations versus 20.0% of EU enterprises | | Per task or in total? | Efficiency can improve while totals rise | Energy per AI task falling while data center use grows | | When was it measured? | AI figures and rules change within months | EU high-risk dates moved by the AI Omnibus in 2026 | Read that way, the picture in September 2026 is specific. AI use is mainstream among individuals and reaches about one business in five in the EU and Canada. Its labour market effects are concentrated among young workers in exposed jobs. Trust in information already has binding rules on both sides of the Atlantic. Data center electricity is a small but fast-growing share with local pressure points. And most rules on AI decisions about people start in 2027 and 2028. ## Key terms - **Generative AI**: AI systems that produce new text, images, audio, video or code in response to a prompt, such as chatbots and image or voice generators. - **Occupational exposure**: The ILO's measure of how many of a job's tasks generative AI could in principle perform. High exposure signals that a job is likely to change; it is not a count of jobs lost. - **Deepfake**: In the EU AI Act, AI-generated or manipulated image, audio or video content that resembles real people, objects, places or events and would falsely appear authentic to a person. - **Content Credentials (C2PA)**: Signed records, defined by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, that travel with a file and state who created it, with which tool, and how it was edited. - **Hard and soft binding**: Two ways C2PA ties a record to a file. A hard binding is a cryptographic hash of the exact bytes; a soft binding is a fingerprint or invisible watermark that still matches after re-encoding. - **High-risk AI system**: Under the EU AI Act, AI used in sensitive areas such as employment, education, credit, law enforcement, migration and justice, or as a safety component of regulated products. It carries the strictest duties. - **Remote biometric identification**: Identifying people without their active involvement, typically at a distance, by comparing their face or other biometric data against a reference database. - **Automated decision-making technology (ADMT)**: Colorado's term for technology that processes personal data and uses computation to produce output that makes or materially influences a consequential decision about a person. - **Accelerated server**: A server equipped with GPUs or similar accelerator chips. The IEA identifies these servers, used mainly for AI, as the main source of growth in data center electricity use. ## Common questions ### What are the positive and negative effects of AI on society? Measured benefits include productivity gains in structured work, such as 14% to 15% in customer support in studies the 2026 AI Index summarizes, and faster note-taking for doctors. Measured harms include rising documented AI incidents (362 in 2025), deepfakes used against voters and victims, face recognition errors that fall unevenly, and fast-growing electricity demand from data centers. ### Is AI taking people's jobs? Not at a scale that shows up in overall employment data yet, according to the 2026 AI Index. The effect is concentrated: employment of software developers aged 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% since 2024. The ILO expects transformation of jobs to be more common than replacement, with one in four workers in occupations with some exposure to generative AI. ### How can I tell if an image, video or voice is AI-generated? Look for a label and for Content Credentials (C2PA); in California, large platforms must detect and display such provenance data from January 2027. A valid credential shows who made the file and how it was edited. Its absence proves nothing, because manifests can be removed and tools without C2PA support never add one, so for anything that matters, confirm through a second channel you already trust. ### Is AI regulated in Canada and the United States? As of September 2026, Canada has no federal AI statute: Bill C-27 and its Artificial Intelligence and Data Act died in January 2025. In the US, federal AI policy is set mainly by executive orders; the December 2025 order asks for a national standard, set with Congress, that would override conflicting state laws. The TAKE IT DOWN Act covers intimate deepfakes, and states such as Colorado and California have passed their own AI laws. ### How much electricity does AI use? The IEA estimates that data centers of all kinds used about 415 TWh in 2024, around 1.5% of global electricity, and 485 TWh in 2025. It projects roughly 950 TWh by 2030, with AI-focused data centers tripling their consumption. Energy per AI task is falling fast, but heavier uses such as video generation and agents push totals up. ### Do people trust AI? Less than they use it. In June 2026, 52% of US adults said they were more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021, and 40% expect AI to have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years. Globally, 59% said AI products offer more benefits than drawbacks in 2025, while 52% said they make them nervous. ## Sources 1. [Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/americans-and-ai-2026-chatbots-smart-devices-and-views-on-impact/), Pew Research Center 2. [The 2026 AI Index Report](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report), Stanford HAI 3. [The 2026 AI Index Report, chapter 4: Economy](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/economy), Stanford HAI 4. [20% of EU enterprises use AI technologies](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20251211-2), Eurostat 5. [Analysis on artificial intelligence use by businesses in Canada, second quarter of 2026](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2026010-eng.htm), Statistics Canada 6. [Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure](https://www.ilo.org/publications/generative-ai-and-jobs-refined-global-index-occupational-exposure), International Labour Organization 7. [Implications of Artificial Intelligence Technologies on Protecting Consumers from Unwanted Robocalls and Robotexts, Declaratory Ruling (FCC 24-17)](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-17A1.pdf), Federal Communications Commission 8. [Public Law 119-12: TAKE IT DOWN Act](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ12/pdf/PLAW-119publ12.pdf), US Government Publishing Office 9. [AI Act: regulatory framework for AI](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai), European Commission 10. [Commission starts enforcing AI Act rules and new transparency requirements on 2 August](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-starts-enforcing-ai-act-rules-and-new-transparency-requirements-2-august), European Commission 11. [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32024R1689), EUR-Lex 12. [C2PA Technical Specification 2.4](https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/2.4/specs/C2PA_Specification.html), Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity 13. [Business and Professions Code, Chapter 25: California AI Transparency Act](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&division=8.&title=&part=&chapter=25.&article=), California Legislative Information 14. [The 2026 AI Index Report, chapter 7: Education](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/education), Stanford HAI 15. [Inside the AI Index: 12 Takeaways from the 2026 Report](https://hai.stanford.edu/news/inside-the-ai-index-12-takeaways-from-the-2026-report), Stanford HAI 16. [SB 26-189: Automated Decision-Making Technology](https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb26-189), Colorado General Assembly 17. [Rite Aid Banned from Using AI Facial Recognition After FTC Says Retailer Deployed Technology without Reasonable Safeguards](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without), Federal Trade Commission 18. [Joint investigation of Clearview AI, Inc. (PIPEDA Findings #2021-001)](https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/investigations/investigations-into-businesses/2021/pipeda-2021-001/), Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 19. [Energy and AI (World Energy Outlook Special Report, April 2025)](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/b8a83930-5c77-4da7-b795-270ab6a6c272/EnergyandAI.pdf), International Energy Agency 20. [Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026)](https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/3179f7f8-01f6-4dd6-bffa-c9f7b73f1dc9/KeyQuestionsonEnergyandAI.pdf), International Energy Agency 21. [AI Omnibus enters into force](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/ai-omnibus-enters-force), European Commission 22. [Chart of signatures and ratifications of Treaty 225 (Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence)](https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=signatures-by-treaty&treatynum=225), Council of Europe Treaty Office 23. [C-27 (44th Parliament, 1st session): Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-27), Parliament of Canada, LEGISinfo 24. [C-36 (45th Parliament, 1st session)](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-36), Parliament of Canada, LEGISinfo 25. [Executive Order 14179: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-01-31/pdf/2025-02172.pdf), Federal Register (govinfo) 26. [Executive Order 14365: Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-16/pdf/2025-23092.pdf), Federal Register (govinfo) 27. [SB 53: Artificial intelligence models: large developers (Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act)](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53), California Legislative Information 28. [The 2026 AI Index Report, chapter 9: Public Opinion](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/public-opinion), Stanford HAI 29. [Young US adults are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/18/young-adults-in-the-us-are-increasingly-wary-of-ai-concerned-it-will-take-jobs/), Pew Research Center