Pew Research · Research · · 2 min read
Can AI answer surveys for real people? Pew Research says: not really
Pew Research had an AI answer nearly 300 survey questions as if it were real Americans. On average its answers were 12 percentage points away from what real people said, and worse for some groups.
In short: AI can't stand in for asking real people. Be careful with “AI-generated survey results”.
Some companies now sell “synthetic surveys”: an AI answers questions as if it were a group of real people. Pew Research tested how well that works.
An AI answered nearly 300 questions from three of Pew's 2026 surveys, standing in for about 15,000 Americans who really took them. On average, its answers were 12 percentage points off.
It did worst for some groups, including people who did not go to college and people who rarely use the internet. For several groups the gap was 15 points or more.
If a report's “survey results” came from AI, not people, treat them as a guess.
These stories summarise reporting we did not produce. Read the source