82% of Gen Z adults use AI chatbots. Is that a problem?

When it comes to interacting with artificial intelligence, a huge generation gap has opened up in the three years since ChatGPT debuted and sparked the current AI boom.

According to a new Yahoo/YouGov poll, more than 8 in 10 Gen Z adults (82%) now say they have used an AI chatbot such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Grok or Meta AI.

Only 33% of their boomer parents and grandparents, however, can say the same. And while AI chatbot use is higher among Gen X-ers (54%) and millennials (68%), it’s still nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is among Zoomers.

In one sense, that’s not surprising; young people almost always adopt new technologies first. But other findings from the survey of 1,770 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Oct. 23 to 27, suggest that the way Gen Z is interacting with artificial intelligence could become a cause for concern.

(For the purposes of this story, Gen Z is defined as Americans ages 18 to 29; millennial is ages 30 to 44; Gen X is ages 45 to 64; and boomer is age 65 and over. These are close to the current accepted age ranges.)

Frequency of use is the first major generational difference. Among Gen Z adults who say they’ve at least tried an AI chatbot, a full 82% say they use the technology either every day (16%), frequently (31%) or sometimes (36%).

The corresponding number among millennial chatbot users — the next youngest cohort — is 66%, with far fewer saying they use AI chatbots every day (12%) or frequently (22%). And only about 1 in 5 Gen X or boomer users report everyday (7%) or frequent (~14%) use.

Even bigger differences arise when chatbot users are asked what they use AI chatbots for. For instance, boomers (53%) are much more likely than Zoomers (34%) to say they use AI chatbots to “answer a factual question” — while Zoomers (39%) are much more likely than boomers (27%) to say they use AI chatbots to “deeply research a subject.”

This fundamental distinction — the younger a user is, the more deeply and even personally they engage with chatbots — is consistent across other categories. Zoomers are 7 points more likely than boomers to say they use AI chatbots to “summarize articles or documents”; 9 points more likely to say they use AI chatbots to “just have a conversation”; 11 points more likely to say they use AI chatbots to “streamline processes at work”; and 13 points more likely to say they use AI chatbots to “talk through personal issues.”

Boomers, in contrast, are more likely than Zoomers to say they use AI chatbots for relatively superficial tasks such as “getting tips on travel and restaurants” (+4 points), “making purchase decisions” (+5 points) and “translating or learning languages” (+5 points).

These generational gaps aren’t necessarily a harbinger of doom. Like any other technology, AI has an upside and a downside, and past predictions about how books, radio, television and the internet would break people’s brains haven’t exactly panned out. Gen Z seems especially aware of this dynamic. Asked whether they think AI chatbots are “making them smarter or dumber,” Zoomers are about 10 points more likely than any other generation to say “smarter in some ways, dumber in others.”

But because AI is meant to simulate — and in many cases supplant — human thought, its potential to affect our own mental processes is exponentially higher than that of previous technologies.

Studies have shown, for example, that “people who rely heavily on chatbots and A.I. search tools for tasks like writing essays and research are generally performing worse than people who don’t use them,” according to the New York Times, with lower brain activity and zero recall of what they’ve supposedly just learned.

“The problem with [AI] tools,” the Times recently reported, paraphrasing a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, “was that they transformed what was once an active process in your brain — perusing through links and clicking on a credible source to read — into a passive one by automating all of that.”

At the same time, experts are increasingly raising questions about the wisdom of using AI to talk through personal issues — or even just have a conversation — as stories pile up about people forming deep emotional bonds with chatbots, sometimes with delusional or even deadly consequences.

The new Yahoo/YouGov poll shows that while older Americans are mostly using AI as a handy alternative to Google and Yelp, Gen Z is now weaving it into the fabric of their lives — both personally and professionally. It remains to be seen whether the benefits of this shift outweigh the costs.

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The Yahoo survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,770 U.S. adults interviewed online from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 3.1%.