Poll finds most Americans worry AI could put jobs at risk

More than half of U.S. adults now worry AI could cost them or someone in their household a job, a warning sign that reaches straight into Target’s stores and support teams. For team members on the floor, the issue is not abstract. It is about which tasks get automated first, how training changes, and whether new software reduces pressure or simply asks people to absorb more work.

A six-day poll of 4,531 adults found that 53 percent shared that concern. About 37 percent said they were not worried, while about 10 percent were unsure or declined to answer. The unease cut across age, gender and education levels fairly evenly, which suggests the anxiety is broad rather than confined to one part of the workforce. The same polling also showed public hesitation about the buildout behind AI itself, with only one-in-three Americans approving of the fast pace of data-center construction and most saying they would oppose one in their own community.

Target has already put AI into its store strategy. In June 2024, the company said it would roll out Store Companion, a generative AI chatbot, to all of its nearly 2,000 stores by August. Target said the tool was designed to answer on-the-job process questions, coach new team members and support store operations management. In practical terms, that points to the first wave of change landing in the most repetitive parts of the job, the places where team members spend time looking up procedures, onboarding new hires or sorting through operational questions.

The company widened that bet in March 2026, saying it would increase spending on new technology, including AI, while also adding hundreds of millions of dollars in store payroll and training. Target said its 2026 capital investment plans would total about $5 billion, and that it expected more changes in stores than in any year of the last decade. For workers, that means the conversation around AI is likely to run alongside scheduling, labor coverage, training time and how much judgment still has to come from people rather than software.

Target also says it is investing in learning and development, with day-one access to most pay and benefits, upskilling resources, mentorship and leadership programs. The company says team members complete 10 million hours of training a year. That makes the real test straightforward: whether AI helps sharpen those hours and make store work clearer, or whether it becomes one more change that arrives faster than the explanation around it.