Will AI have a lasting impact on how we live?
What people around the world think about new technologies: a representative survey in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States about technology with a focus on AI.
Artificial intelligence has to be part of any conversation about future technologies, and this has been true for some time now. Which is why Bosch carried out a representative survey for the third year running that asked people from several countries to share their views on technological progress. The survey focused on people’s general openness to artificial intelligence, AI’s impact on our daily lives, and its role in society. The technology report takes a closer look at the different views held by different people in different countries, along with the role played by the key technologies of today.
Key questions explored in the study
Does AI make the world a better place?
55% of people surveyed worldwide believe that AI will make the world a better place. Respondents from China (83%) and India (75%) were most optimistic, while opinions in the Western world were more divided.
Are we ready for the dawn of the AI era?
Roughly half (49%) of those surveyed worldwide feel that they are ready for the ever-expanding role that artificial technology is set to play. However, this is primarily down to high levels of acceptance for the technology in Asia (76% in India and 73% in China), while those surveyed in Western countries were more pessimistic.
Can AI be as smart as a human?
A majority of those surveyed worldwide (61%) expect that AI will achieve human-level intelligence. Here again, there is marked difference between East and West. For instance, 73% of people in India, but only 53% in France, answered yes to this question.
82%
of those surveyed worldwide would like AI-generated content to be labeled as such. In Germany and the UK, this is even higher (87%).
Technology report marks third year: Is AI more important now than in the past?
For the third time, people were asked as part of the Tech Compass study to state which technologies will have the greatest impact in the coming decade. Globally, 43% (2022) and 41% (2023) ranked AI as the most important technology. This year, however, there has been a massive spike in the number of respondents who rated it highest in terms of overall importance. Today, 64% of people surveyed worldwide now believe that artificial intelligence will be the most influential technology in the near future.
This trend is reflected in every country covered in the survey, with Germany witnessing the largest year-over-year rise at 28 percentage points.
Does more AI make for a better world?
Artificial intelligence is now part of our daily lives. But does the growing influence of AI make the world a better place? 55% of people in the countries surveyed believe that AI will change the world for the better. This is commonly held view especially in Asian countries, with 83% in China and 75% in India responding yes to this question.
Trust in artificial intelligence has also risen in relation to other technologies. In 2022 and 2023, biotech, climate engineering, and hydrogen/fuel cells were the technologies that had the biggest positive impact on society according to the survey. In 2024, AI was ranked number one, receiving 39% of all votes, up 6 percentage points from last year.
But what benefits do people hope AI will bring in their personal lives? The largest number (49% overall and a whopping 70% in China) stated that it will “make life more comfortable.” This was followed by “make work easier” (45%) and “better health” (44%).
However, people also had mixed feelings about AI as the study results reveal. When asked which technology poses the greatest threat to society, 38% of those surveyed named “artificial intelligence,” 11 percentage points more than in previous years. People worry about the negative impact that AI could have. More than half of those surveyed (53%) are concerned of loss of jobs due to automation. This is followed by “privacy violations” and the fear of “manipulation of human behavior due to AI-powered algorithms,” both coming in at 52%.
Revolutionary technology: Is AI as important of the invention of the Internet?
Is AI just a passing fad that no one really knows or understands what its impact will be? Or will the technology change our world forever? To find out, those surveyed for the study were asked whether the rise of generative AI is similar to that of the Internet over 30 years ago.
The results are quite clear as the global index shows. 73% of those surveyed believe that generative AI will change our world much like the Internet did in the past. In China, a full 84% share this view. People in the U.S. are somewhat more skeptical, though a clear majority of respondents (66%) there believe there are parallels between AI and the Internet in terms of their respective impact.
Key facts
Study design
For this study people aged 18 and over were surveyed online in seven countries (Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, UK and USA) in December 2023 by Gesellschaft für Innovative Marktforschung mbH (GIM) on behalf of Robert Bosch GmbH. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, a minimum of 1,000 people each were surveyed, in Brazil, China, India, and the United States, a minimum of 2,000 people each were surveyed.
The samples are representative for the respective country in terms of region, gender, and age (Brazil, Germany, France, the U.S., United Kingdom: 18–69 years/China, India: 18–59 years).
Your contact partner
Christiane Wild-Raidt
Spokesperson, research and advance engineering and artificial intelligence
*For global results (“Global Index”), an average was taken across the seven countries, regardless of population size. Unless otherwise stated: values based on Top 2 Box. For ease of reading and interpretation, the global index for 2023/2024, in each case based on 7 countries, is occasionally compared with the index of 2022 based on 5 countries. Calculating a global index for 2023/2024 based on the 5 previous countries provided equivalent results.