Felix M. Simon reports a split in the Reuters Institute’s new survey across nine countries. People increasingly use AI to find information. They remain wary of newsrooms letting it make the news.
AI is becoming an everyday route to answers
- Across the six countries with comparable past data, 51% of respondents used standalone conversational AI at least weekly. The U.S. figure was 49%.
- Across countries, 38% used generative AI to get information in the past week, up from 24% in 2025 and 11% in 2024. Using it specifically for news rose to 9%, from 6% in 2025 and 3% in 2024.
- Search is also delivering AI without a deliberate trip to a chatbot: 57% of respondents across countries saw or engaged with an AI-generated answer or summary in the past week.
- Convenience matters more than claimed accuracy. Among people using AI for information, 64% chose faster, easier answers as a reason; 21% chose greater reliability than other sources.
News production is a different question
Across the nine countries, just 12% said they were comfortable with news made entirely by AI. That rose to 19% when some human oversight was added. Those attitudes have changed little since 2024. People were especially uncomfortable with AI-written commentary and opinion.
The tension for publishers is real: readers may encounter reporting through AI summaries while still wanting a human to do the reporting and exercise editorial judgment. Simon argues this makes discovery, attribution and revenue harder for publishers. The survey records audience attitudes and self-reported use; it does not measure the quality of AI answers or prove how much traffic any publisher has lost.
The underlying Reuters Institute report has the full survey findings.