---
title: "Attitudes towards AI tools — AI data 2026"
url: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/ai/data/ai-sentiment
year: 2026
chapter: "ai"
question: "AISentiment"
section: "AI usage"
licence: "ODbL 1.0 (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/)"
---

# Attitudes towards AI tools

Overall sentiment is 62% favorable. It closely tracks career maturity: 53% of early career users (1-5 years exp.) are favorable, compared with 69% of experienced users (16+ years exp.). This is not proof that work experience leads to favorable attitudes, but they are certainly related.

Asked as: How would you describe your attitude toward using AI tools or agents as part of your work? (`AISentiment`, single select, optional, v2026.1)

## Options offered

1. Very unfavorable
2. Somewhat unfavorable
3. Neutral
4. Somewhat favorable
5. Very favorable
6. Not sure

## Results

### All Respondents

n = 14,428

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Very favorable | 4,564 | 31.6% |
| Somewhat favorable | 4,385 | 30.4% |
| Neutral | 2,205 | 15.3% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 2,110 | 14.6% |
| Very unfavorable | 994 | 6.9% |
| Not sure | 170 | 1.2% |

### 1 - 5 yrs work exp

n = 3,306

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Very favorable | 762 | 23.1% |
| Somewhat favorable | 1,001 | 30.3% |
| Neutral | 629 | 19.0% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 612 | 18.5% |
| Very unfavorable | 260 | 7.9% |
| Not sure | 42 | 1.3% |

### 6 - 15 yrs work exp

n = 4,979

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Very favorable | 1,517 | 30.5% |
| Somewhat favorable | 1,543 | 31.0% |
| Neutral | 733 | 14.7% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 759 | 15.2% |
| Very unfavorable | 369 | 7.4% |
| Not sure | 58 | 1.2% |

### 16+ yrs work exp

n = 5,546

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Very favorable | 2,184 | 39.4% |
| Somewhat favorable | 1,670 | 30.1% |
| Neutral | 698 | 12.6% |
| Somewhat unfavorable | 633 | 11.4% |
| Very unfavorable | 314 | 5.7% |
| Not sure | 47 | 0.9% |

In context: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/ai/data.md