Excited to be on Odd Lots to talk about the politics of AI. AI today is less important than it will ever be. Over the past year, AI rose in issue importance faster than any issue we track — it's now more important to voters than climate change, child care, and abortion.

AI is hitting at a time when 61% of Americans say life has gotten less affordable in the last year, only 25% feel confident in their financial future, and only 34% say they have a secure job. Not a great starting place for major disruption to the labor market.

Voters are extremely concerned about the impact of AI: 79% are concerned the government doesn't have a plan to protect workers from AI job losses. 77% are concerned about industries being eliminated. 56% are worried about personally losing their job.

The "everything will be fine" message is dead on arrival with voters. When leaders in government and tech say "AI will not cause widespread job losses" - net trust is -41. When they say "AI will create economic productivity that benefits everyone" - net trust is -20.

Even among Trump voters, helping workers who lose jobs to AI beats giving tech companies incentives to keep innovating 50% to 24%. Overall it's 58-20.

Voters want jobs, not checks - "creating good-paying jobs" beats "direct income support" 54-17 as the preferred approach to AI displacement. And voters want a tax specifically on companies that profit from AI to pay for it (over a wealth tax) 49-27.

When we tested videos on these themes, AI-specific populism - messages that address the future impact of AI in bold, populist terms - performed at the top compared with every other topic we've tested in moving voters toward Democrats.