Loudonville, NY (WRGB) \u2014 Artificial intelligence is becoming a routine part of life for many New Yorkers, but a new Siena Poll shows the state remains divided over whether the technology is doing more harm than good.<\/p>\n
In the poll released April 14, 2026, 43% of New York state residents said the disadvantages of artificial intelligence are too great, while 37% said the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Another 19% said they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
The survey found AI chatbots are widely used across the state. Two-thirds of New Yorkers, 67%, said they have used an AI chatbot, while 32% said they have never used one. 44% said they use AI chatbots at least weekly, including 21% who said they use them daily and 23% who said they use them at least once a week.<\/p>\n
Compared to last year, 48% of residents said they are using AI tools more, 39% said their use is about the same, and 8% said their use has decreased.<\/p>\n
Among New Yorkers who use AI chatbots, 41% said their primary use is mostly for personal reasons, 24% said they use AI mostly for professional reasons, and 32% said they use AI equally for both personal and professional reasons.<\/p>\n
Half of AI users, 56%, said they often double-check the information or results provided by an AI tool \u201calways\u201d or \u201cmost of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
One in five AI chatbot users, 20%, said they currently pay for a subscription. Payment was more common among frequent users: 28% of those who use AI chatbots at least weekly said they pay for a premium subscription, compared with 5% of those who use chatbots infrequently.<\/p>\n
Across both frequent and infrequent AI chatbot users, ChatGPT was the tool used most often, followed by Gemini and Copilot.<\/p>\n
Exposure to AI-generated material also appears widespread. Nearly 9 in 10 residents, 92%, said they have seen content in the last 30 days that appeared to be generated by AI.<\/p>\n
When asked about trust, New Yorkers expressed mixed views. 35% said they trust results from a traditional search engine more than information provided by an AI chatbot. 8% said they trust AI results more, 28% said they trust search engines and AI output equally, and 23% said they trust neither source.<\/p>\n
The poll found familiarity with AI chatbots varies sharply by age. 56% of those under 35 said they are very familiar with AI chatbots, compared with 6% of those 65 and older. In the poll\u2019s age breakdown, 87% of those under 50 said they are very or somewhat familiar, compared with 47% of those 50 and older.<\/p>\n
Despite differences in familiarity, concern about AI was similar across age groups, with about four in 10 in both age categories saying the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Trust differed more: 12% of residents under 50 said they trust AI more than search engines, compared with 2% of those over 50. Residents over 50 were also more likely to say they trust neither AI nor search engines, 32% compared with 16% among those under 50.<\/p>\n
Travis Brodbeck, associate director of data management said,<\/p>\n
Four years after ChatGPT was released to the public, AI is creeping into everyday life, whether you use a dedicated chatbot app or website, or use AI features embedded in other spaces. Almost every New Yorker, regardless of background, encounters AI-generated content. Like various forms of emerging technology, we see gaps in behaviors and attitudes between the youngest and oldest New Yorkers. These age-related differences risk creating a new element to the \u2018digital divide\u2019 where the ability to discern AI content and use AI tools is a new skill required in the digital age.<\/p>\n
The Siena University Poll was conducted March 3-14, 2026, among 810 New York state residents and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points, including design effects resulting from weighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loudonville, NY (WRGB) \u2014 Artificial intelligence is becoming a routine part of life for many New Yorkers, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-196739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}