PR Newswire: New Poll: Americans Want Trust, Accountability, and Independent Expertise as AI Guardrails

A recent national report released by Fathom, AI Governance: What Americans Really Want, finds that Americans across party lines, age groups, and levels of AI familiarity consistently prioritize trust, accountability, and independent expertise as the foundation for how AI should be governed. The findings come as state lawmakers consider legislation to establish a framework of independent verification for AI products.

Unlike standard opinion polling, which tends to surface easy agreement on abstract principles, Fathom's survey was designed to test where the public's preferences hold once real-world tradeoffs are introduced. Respondents were asked to rate twenty principles for a good AI future, then to weigh those same priorities against explicit costs — accountability "even if this creates liability risks for companies," verification "even if it slows innovation" — and finally to make either/or choices between competing principles. The result is a durable portrait of public opinion that can guide lawmakers.