About

The ai-dentities project studies how people across Switzerland encounter and integrate generative AI into their daily lives, drawing on a nationally representative survey and accompanying research. At its core, the project explores three dimensions of life with AI.

ME & AI — The Individual Experience
We study the behaviors and motivations that shape people’s use of generative AI, including information, making decisions, expressing creativity, or asking for guidance. We look at how people say they feel about these interactions and examine when and why they choose AI over other options. A central focus is how these choices affect an individual’s sense of identity, agency, and well-being.

US & AI — The Social Experience
Building on the personal dimension, the project explores how AI shapes relationships and collective life. We study how AI mediates interactions among friends, in families, schools, workplaces, and other communities. We analyze how AI shapes collective experiences – how communities adapt to it, negotiate its role, and integrate it into the ways they live, work, and relate to one another.

FUTURE & AI — Society’s Emerging Expectations
Looking ahead, ai-dentities maps the contours of a new social contract for emerging technologies. We gather public views on the skills, norms, and guardrails that people believe Switzerland will need as AI capabilities expand and integrate. By tracing evolving concepts of trust, participation, or protection, the project identifies the boundaries and shared principles that are beginning to guide how Swiss society imagines an AI-supported future.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Prompt: A cinematic close-up portrait of a young person with red hair and freckles sitting by a window on a modern tram or train. Sunlight streams through the window, illuminating their face as they gaze thoughtfully outside. Green scenery passes by in the background. Calm, introspective mood, shallow depth of field, natural light, realistic skin texture, modern European public transport. Optional style modifiers: golden hour light, 50mm lens, quiet reflection, cinematic realism

The project explores how people in Switzerland encounter and experience generative AI in their daily lives. Its goal is to understand how Swiss society is living together with AI and what kind of social contract is emerging in parallel. The title combines “AI” and “identities” to highlight the project’s focus on the plurality of identities in Switzerland. This includes how people see themselves as individuals, how they relate to others in families, communities, and workplaces, and how they imagine their role as part of a future society shaped by AI.

The project explores how people experience AI in daily life: how it influences their sense of self, what they rely on it for, and where they draw personal boundaries. It then examines how these choices affect relationships and interactions in families, schools, and communities. Finally, it looks at how people imagine the future with AI, including their expectations of more advanced forms of assistance or companionship.

The project examines how people relate to generative AI across three connected areas. ME & AI focuses on individual attitudes and values. It looks at when and why people turn to AI, what they rely on it for, and where they set personal boundaries. US & AI explores how AI shapes relationships and shared life. It investigates how AI is used among friends and family, in schools and workplaces, and in other communities, and how these experiences influence the ways people connect and collaborate. FUTURE & AI considers how society imagines the role of AI going forward. It gathers people’s views on the skills, norms, and safeguards that people believe will be needed and includes questions about emerging forms of support such as agents or digital twins.

Generative AI is advancing rapidly and is already profoundly changing how we think, learn, create, and solve problems. Public discourse around AI often swings between “wild optimism” and “deep fear,” and mis-and dis-information abounds. This study provides empirical evidence and broad insights to ground future decision-making in the domains of,policy, research, and AI applications.

The project is led by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Zurich, anchored at the Institute of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ) with Dr. Sandra Cortesi as the lead researcher. The Technical University of Munich, through the TUM Think Tank, supports the project as an academic partner for research exchange, dialogue, and translation of findings. Additional supporters are listed here.

Data is collected through anonymous online surveys. The project is structured as a nationally representative study that captures decisions and attitudes across different regions, languages, and generations in Switzerland. More qualitative data will be added over time.

The study involves two surveys targeting a total of 4,000 participants. One survey is with 1,000 people aged 15-79 years. The other survey is with 1,000 young people aged 16-17 years and 2,000 adults aged 18-79 years.

The project is committed to prioritizing information security and data protection. The surveys are fully anonymous, with no collection of personal identifying information and no commercial use of the data. Data collection is executed by an independent Swiss market research company, which is responsible for secure data collection and ensuring compliance with Swiss Data Protection Laws.

The project is funded by philanthropic donations, including an unrestricted gift from Sunrise GmbH. The UZH Foundation, YouMedia, and the TUM Think Tank support the project through non-financial contributions such as fundraising support, communication, and stakeholder engagement.

The project ensures the objectivity and integrity of its findings through robust institutional governance and contractual safeguards, mirroring the strict oversight of leading academic initiatives. The support is structured to guarantee independence from all stakeholders. Financial contributions are provided as a pure donation without counter-performance (“reine Spende ohne Gegenleistung”). This contractual separation ensures that the donors have no influence on research questions, methodology, data collection, or publication strategy. They have no right to preview project results or raw data. In addition, the project adheres to information security and data protection requirements set forth in Swiss Data Protection Law, with oversight provided by the UZH Foundation and Legal Services. By actively engaging experts and utilizing proactive communication formats (workshops, podcasts, visualisations), the project strengthens the societal dialogue and fosters evidence-based decision-making, ensuring the findings serve the public interest.

Direct participation in the core, nationally representative survey is not open to individual registration. However, the project actively seeks engagement through two pathways: Schools and teachers are invited to register their interest to involve their students (aged 12-17 years) in the youth survey. And everyone is invited to engage in the discussion of the project‘s topics. If you would like to get in conversation about your experiences with AI, or have insights to share, you can contact us via email at s.cortesi@ikmz.uzh.ch.

Short data snapshots, visual insights, and expert commentary, will be shared on the project’s website and communication channels as they become available. The first major findings will be presented in 2026. You can sign up for updates and notifications via the project’s communication channels [Link].