AI Public Opinion Tracker Presentation

Presentation about the AI Public Opinion Tracker, created by the University of South Carolina

Speaker: Dan Sultanescu

 

Dan Sultanescu is a Romanian expert in strategic communication, public opinion analysis, and digital media. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of South Carolina a few years ago, where he conducted research on political communication and emerging technologies. He is an Assoc. Prof. in Romania, and the founder of a technology startup about digital news. 

The AI Public Opinion Tracker is an ongoing research initiative of the College of Information and Communications at the University of South Carolina, designed to systematically measure public attitudes toward artificial intelligence. The project is based on a repeated national survey of the U.S. adult population, currently comprising four waves of data, and is complemented by an international dataset developed in collaboration with UNESCO, covering three additional countries. The initiative will continue with future waves of measurement.

Wave 4 captures a moment of normalization in public interaction with AI, as AI assistants move from experimental tools to embedded infrastructures shaping everyday communication, work, and information practices. Adoption is exceptionally rapid (nearly half of U.S. adults already use AI tools), outpacing the historical diffusion of transformative technologies such as the internet and mobile phones, and signaling a compressed timeline of social change.

The presentation will highlight key insights from the report, while emphasizing that faculty and students have access not only to the Wave 4 findings but to the full datasets from all four waves, available for independent research and teaching. The session will also introduce the upcoming wave of research, inviting the academic community to contribute to its development.