A YouGov survey found that most Americans believe dominant technology companies hold excessive power, want stronger enforcement of competition laws and remain deeply concerned about personal data and artificial intelligence oversight.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Public enthusiasm for new technology is being matched by broad concern over the influence of the companies building and controlling it, with a new survey finding strong support across party lines for limiting the power of the nation’s largest technology firms.
The YouGov poll, commissioned by the Little Tech Association and released through Axios, found that 71% of Americans believe Big Tech companies and their chief executives have too much power. Only 2% said the industry has too little influence, reflecting a wide imbalance in public perceptions of the sector’s role in the economy and daily life.
The findings arrive as federal and state policymakers continue debating antitrust enforcement, artificial intelligence regulation and the market dominance of a small group of major technology companies. Although Americans remain active users of digital products and increasingly rely on AI tools, the survey indicates that adoption has not translated into confidence that the largest firms will act responsibly without stronger oversight.
Support for enforcing existing antitrust law was especially high. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said state and federal agencies should use current competition laws against major technology companies, while 3% opposed such action. Another 67% supported bipartisan efforts to strengthen antitrust laws governing the technology industry, compared with 4% who disagreed.
Concerns over privacy were even more widespread. Nine in 10 respondents said they were worried about how large corporations collect and use personal information, including 48% who described themselves as “very concerned.” Those views cut across political affiliations, suggesting that skepticism toward dominant technology companies extends beyond traditional partisan divisions.
The survey also found that artificial intelligence has already become a routine part of life for many Americans. Seventy-two percent of respondents said they had used AI during the previous three months, and more than three in five of those users described the experience as positive.
That willingness to use AI did not produce similar trust in the companies developing it. Fewer than one in five respondents said they trusted Big Tech firms to manage the development and deployment of artificial intelligence responsibly. Nearly half said they did not trust any of the institutions listed in the survey—including small businesses, major technology companies, Congress, state and local governments or the Trump administration—to oversee AI development.
“Americans have made themselves clear,” Little Tech Association Executive Director Harry Godfrey said in a statement. “They love what technology can do, and they are deeply uneasy about how much power a handful of giant companies now hold over it.”
Godfrey said the findings show that the public wants the emerging AI market to remain open to competition rather than becoming concentrated among the same companies that dominate much of the internet.
“The public does not want the future of AI decided by the same handful of companies that already dominate the internet,” Godfrey said. “Americans are telling us they want competition, not consolidation.”
The Little Tech Association is a recently established trade group representing approximately 200 smaller technology companies. It was created to give startups and less dominant firms a larger role in policy debates involving competition, market access and artificial intelligence.
Y Combinator, Proton, Replit and Yelp are among the organization’s founding members and largest financial supporters. The group has also weighed in on questions involving foreign AI systems, recently urging the federal government not to bar access to Chinese open-source models. It argued that such restrictions could place smaller American developers at a disadvantage by limiting access to tools that larger companies may be better positioned to replace internally.
The survey suggests that many Americans distinguish between their appreciation for technology and their confidence in the corporations controlling it. Respondents generally viewed AI use positively while simultaneously expressing support for stronger antitrust enforcement, tighter competition rules and greater scrutiny of data practices.
YouGov conducted the survey from July 6 through July 13 among 1,275 U.S. adults. The results were weighted to represent the national adult population and carry a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
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