Lowy Institute poll: 65% of Australians say AI risks outweigh the benefits

Sixty-five percent of Australians say the risks of AI outweigh its benefits and 33% say the opposite, unchanged since March, according to a mini-poll published by the Lowy Institute on November 15. The Social Research Centre surveyed 3,028 Australian adults for the think tank between October 6 and 18, with a margin of error of about 1.2%.

Australians are also wary of where their AI comes from. Only 23% say they are very or somewhat comfortable with Australian businesses using AI from China, and 36% say the same about AI from the United States. That 13-point gap is more than four times the gap in trust between the two countries: in the institute's March poll, 31% trusted the US to act responsibly in the world and 28% said the same of China.

The Lowy Institute says this creates a tension with the government's National AI Plan, released in December 2025, which aims to make Australia a leading destination for data centre investment, largely by American firms. Government policy risks outpacing public sentiment, it says, as the gains from AI remain prospective while costs such as price pressure from data centre construction are already visible.