---
type: claim
domain: entertainment
description: "Gen Z shows 54% rejection of AI in creative work versus 13% in shopping, revealing consumers distinguish AI as efficiency tool from AI as creative replacement"
confidence: likely
source: "Goldman Sachs survey (August 2025) via eMarketer; Billion Dollar Boy survey (July 2025); CivicScience survey (July 2025)"
created: 2026-03-11
secondary_domains: ["cultural-dynamics"]
supports:
- gen z hostility to ai generated advertising is stronger than millennials and widening making gen z a negative leading indicator for ai content acceptance
reweave_edges:
- gen z hostility to ai generated advertising is stronger than millennials and widening making gen z a negative leading indicator for ai content acceptance|supports|2026-04-04
---

# Consumer AI acceptance diverges by use case with creative work facing 4x higher rejection than functional applications

Consumer attitudes toward AI are not monolithic but highly context-dependent, with creative applications facing dramatically higher resistance than functional ones. Goldman Sachs survey data (August 2025) shows that 54% of Gen Z prefer no AI involvement in creative work, while only 13% feel this way about shopping—a 4.2x difference in rejection rates.

This divergence reveals that consumers are making sophisticated distinctions about where AI adds value versus where it threatens core human values. In functional domains like shopping, AI is accepted as an efficiency tool that helps consumers navigate choice and optimize outcomes. In creative domains, AI is perceived as a replacement that undermines the authenticity, humanity, and identity-expression that consumers value in creative work.

The pattern suggests that consumer resistance to AI is not about technology aversion but about protecting domains where human agency, creativity, and authenticity are central to the value proposition. This has direct implications for entertainment strategy: AI adoption will face structural headwinds in creator-facing applications while potentially succeeding in backend production, recommendation systems, and other infrastructure layers that consumers don't directly experience as "creative."

The creative-versus-functional distinction also explains why the 60%→26% collapse in enthusiasm for AI-generated creator content (Billion Dollar Boy, 2023-2025) occurred even as AI tools gained acceptance in other domains. The resistance is domain-specific, not a general technology rejection.

## Evidence
- Goldman Sachs survey (August 2025): 54% of Gen Z prefer no AI in creative work
- Same survey: only 13% prefer no AI in shopping (4.2x lower rejection rate)
- Billion Dollar Boy (July 2025): enthusiasm for AI creator content dropped from 60% to 26% (2023-2025)
- CivicScience (July 2025): 31% say AI in ads makes them less likely to pick a brand

## Implications
This use-case divergence suggests that entertainment companies should pursue AI adoption asymmetrically: aggressive investment in backend production efficiency and infrastructure, but cautious deployment in consumer-facing creative applications where the "AI-made" signal itself may damage value. The strategy is to use AI where consumers don't see it, not where they do.


### Additional Evidence (extend)
*Source: [[2026-01-01-koinsights-authenticity-premium-ai-rejection]] | Added: 2026-03-16*

The divergence is strongest in contexts with high emotional stakes, cultural significance, visible human craft, and trust requirements. The McDonald's Christmas ad case demonstrates that even high-production-value AI content (10 people, 5 weeks) faces rejection in emotionally meaningful contexts.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[GenAI adoption in entertainment will be gated by consumer acceptance not technology capability]]
- [[consumer-rejection-of-ai-generated-ads-intensifies-as-ai-quality-improves-disproving-the-exposure-leads-to-acceptance-hypothesis]]
- [[human-made-is-becoming-a-premium-label-analogous-to-organic-as-AI-generated-content-becomes-dominant]]

Topics:
- domains/entertainment/_map
- foundations/cultural-dynamics/_map
