The news: Despite the growing availability of intelligent AI agents, most consumers aren’t willing to pay for an AI assistant, and many are wary of products that don’t offer the ability to opt out.

• 71% of US adults wouldn’t pay extra for AI assistant features, per a ZDNET/Aberdeen Research survey conducted by YouGov.
• 31% of all adults and 28% of Gen Zers would drop a product entirely if they couldn’t turn off AI assistant features.

This overall resistance to paying for AI tools is growing: In September, just 45% of US adults said they wouldn’t pay for those features on smartphones, per YouGov.

Tentative interest: One reason for the hesitation to pay could be an understanding gap between what consumers want and what developers are working on.

While major players like Google and OpenAI are pushing forward with productivity-enhancing AI tools that can autonomously manage tasks, consumer interest in those features remains low.

• 64% of US adults would never use an AI assistant to handle tasks like making dinner reservations, planning trips, or shopping online.
• 6% would even stop using a product that offered those capabilities.

What’s the use? By contrast, users are more open to using AI for information seeking, summarizing, and creativity.

• 58% see value for photo-editing tools, like Canva or Adobe Firefly.
• 51% of respondents frequently or occasionally use AI for answering questions and making recommendations on task management.

On-device value: Google, Apple, Amazon, and others are racing to get AI assistants into smartphones and smart home products, but consumer interest is lukewarm.

• 47% said AI assistants wouldn’t be valuable in smart home devices and 43% wouldn’t find them useful in smartphones.
• Gen Zers are the most open to on-device AI capabilities, with only about one-third seeing no value in integration for smart home devices (34%) or smartphones (32%).

Our take: A focus on opt-out options and AI tools for information access and creative use could help tech players attract wary consumers. Although developers are hyped on autonomous task management, a lack of trust in AI capabilities—or perceived loss of control—could dampen adoption.