Innovation Is Booming. Americans Ask: What’s in It for Us? – Inside Sources

We’re putting a man on the moon again, but we can’t build affordable housing, create jobs for our children or make life easier for the average family here on Earth.

That’s how many Americans view innovation, according to a new Harris Poll: They are impressed by what new technology can do but frustrated by how often it fails to improve their lives — and sometimes seems to make things worse.

The survey’s clearest finding is that 76% of Americans see innovation as a positive societal force that will play a central or significant role in building a better future. Yet 81% said the way companies talk about innovation often feels disconnected from their daily challenges, and 79% believe the country is innovating in the wrong areas.

The poll was commissioned by Philip Morris International U.S. (PMI U.S.), which is using innovation to encourage adult smokers to switch to smoke-free nicotine products such as the IQOS heated-tobacco system and ZYN nicotine pouches.

“In a time when the country is polarized by identity and ideology, the Harris data show a shared pressure map, with Americans still agreeing on the problems that matter,” according to PMI’s executive report. “Health care, housing, good-paying jobs that do not require a four-year degree, education, trust, infrastructure, support for small businesses, resilience, and broader access to innovation form a practical consensus agenda.

“Americans do not lack common priorities; they lack enough institutions and businesses organized around delivering on them.”

The public’s litmus test for innovation is no longer novelty but utility, according to the survey. Americans want to know what a new product improves, whom it serves and whether its benefits extend beyond investors, corporations and wealthier communities.

Participants said they are not impressed by corporate investments in artificial intelligence, business software and other supposedly world-changing initiatives. They would rather see more of that brainpower applied to reducing everyday costs, improving health care, creating good-paying local jobs, upgrading schools, making housing more affordable and strengthening public safety.

The big divide, noted PMI Senior Vice President for Strategic Projects Marian Salzman, is national versus local. Just 43% of respondents expressed confidence that the United States is headed in the right direction, while 58% felt confident about the direction of their communities. Neighbors, local businesses, entrepreneurs, nonprofits and health care workers generally ranked above distant national institutions as trusted drivers of positive change.

“Don’t focus on the data point that 79% believe America is innovating in the wrong areas,” Salzman said. “If you flip it on its head, where do people actually believe in innovation? They believe in it when it happens locally.”

Those findings matter for companies seeking acceptance of new or controversial products. People want evidence, regulation, trusted messengers and results they can observe, according to the survey.

PMI is part of the ongoing public health debate over prohibition versus innovation. Some anti-tobacco activists favor prohibitionist policies, including age-based lifetime bans on purchasing tobacco and nicotine products.

Other public health advocates argue prohibition is destined to fail, while innovation can help replace combustible cigarettes with smoke-free nicotine products that meet the public’s demand for practical results.

“It would be unethical for PMI to have the resources to innovate and not develop alternatives to combustible nicotine products,” said Jeff Stier, a senior fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “Government didn’t come up with the e-cigarette because it’s not its job and it doesn’t have the expertise. The unethical behavior here is on the part of health groups that oppose a proven way to reduce the damage done by the most dangerous consumer product ever created.”

According to the CDC’s preliminary estimate for 2025, 9.1% of U.S. adults currently smoke cigarettes — roughly 24 million people. PMI says it has invested more than $16 billion since 2008 in the development, scientific assessment and commercialization of smoke-free products for adults who would otherwise continue smoking.

“Our group CEO, Jacek Olczak, has said he looks forward to a time when cigarettes are something you only see in museums,” Salzman said. “I can envision in the next 20 years that cigarettes will be like the Yellow Pages, something from the past. And innovation is the only way to get there.”