Digital News Report 2026

Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism · 2026-06-16

Within the news ecosystem, an apparent paradox emerges between behaviour and attitudes. There is continued change in news consumption in favour of social media, video networks and, more recently, AI. At the same time, concerns about trust in news, about misinformation, and about the wider impact of these platforms are all increasing.

A central theme this year is this growing ‘platformisation’ of news consumption. For the first time, social media and video networks are, on average across the markets covered, more popular than both TV and owned news websites and apps as sources of news. Growing numbers are also experimenting with AI chatbots as a new means of access. When online, people increasingly like to watch rather than read the news, often drawing on a wider range of sources and voices. Some of the new contributors are credible, innovative, and making a positive contribution to the range of news choices. This report explores in detail the rise of creators and other emerging news producers, the role they play in this changing environment, and what audiences value about their content.

The use of AI chatbots for news is growing quickly but not as quickly as AI use for other purposes: 10% of people use AI chatbots for news, up from 7% last year. Usage is predominantly by those most interested in news and is more concentrated among younger audiences (16% of under-35s report using AI chatbots for news).

South Korea, Greece, and Spain all saw use of AI chatbots for news double year on year, but growth was not universal. Several markets including the USA, the UK, France, and Germany reported no increase in AI chatbot use for news over the year. AI chatbot users seem to appreciate the extra depth or explanation which comes with using chatbots for news; the most popular feature (42% of respondents) is the ability to ask follow-up questions.

Since 2021, the proportion of people saying they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested in the news has fallen by an average of 13pp across the markets we survey. A quarter (25%) of respondents are now casual or passive news users who typically only consume news once a week and say they have little to no interest in it, up from 16% in 2021. But although there are fewer highly engaged ‘news lovers’ in almost every country, these news enthusiasts are relatively undiminished in their usage, engagement, and propensity to pay – a smaller, but durable, target market.

Trust in news has fallen in 29 of our 48 markets this year, resulting in a drop overall to the lowest level we have recorded since we started to measure trust in 2015 (37%). Trust fell by 5pp or more in 19 markets. In the United States, only a quarter (25%) of people now say they trust the news most of the time. Some of this worldwide drop in trust reflects wider anxieties beyond the news industry – trust in institutions and leaders is widely declining, and journalism is also often under direct attack from high-profile politicians. Despite these pressures, trust in the most widely used individual news brands is holding up better than trust in news overall.

Reductions in trust are also related to changes in the news consumption mix. Social media and video networks have long been trusted less than traditional news media, so trust overall is prone to go down as more people’s consumption tends towards using social media and video networks (and AI chatbots) for news at the expense of legacy sources. We can probably expect trust in news overall to fall further in future, but trust for many established news providers appears to be defying this trend.

Concerns about fake news are also up, by 4pp to 62% on average, with jumps of more than 5pp in 11 markets. Only in one market (Brazil) did misinformation concerns decrease (-3 pp). As people’s use of third-party platforms goes up so do worries about misinformation, but convenience appears to trump concern.

2026 represents a significant milestone: for the first time, social media and video network consumption is now ahead of other news sources as the most widely used source of news globally (54% of all audiences). The use of both TV news and news organisations’ websites and apps has fallen by 13pp and 12pp respectively since 2020. The relative decline of television as a source of news is well recognised across the industry. What is perhaps less well acknowledged is that people’s use of news websites and apps has declined at a similar rate in recent years.

AI is the other third-party source of news to see more recent growth.3 Weekly use of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini for news increased year-on-year from 7% to 10%. This is certainly a significant proportional rise but news consumption via AI platforms does not (yet) appear to be exploding – although usage has doubled, from small bases, in some countries including Greece (to 12%) and South Korea (to 14%).

In this year’s survey we looked specifically at a consumption aspect of the AI revolution, namely the usage of AI chatbots for news. Our data this year show fast rather than explosive growth in the use of AI chatbots for news. At the global level, weekly news usage has increased by 3pp from 7% to 10% of all audiences. (It is important to note again that these usage data relate specifically to the usage of dedicated, standalone AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini.)

The chart shows considerable variation in weekly news usage rates. Some countries have seen usage double to levels of more than 10%, but accessing AI chatbots for news tends to be less popular in the USA and Europe, with usage in the UK the lowest of any market in our survey at 4%. In general, the adoption of AI chatbots for news is higher in countries where search, social, aggregator, and video platform adoption is relatively high, and lower in countries where direct access remains popular. In this sense, AI chatbot news use follows the pattern of platformisation that we have documented in past reports.

One factor likely to be affecting adoption of AI chatbots for news is perceived trustworthiness, itself probably influenced by the tone of media coverage about AI generally. Trust in answers from AI chatbots is 20% globally (relative to trust in news overall at 37%). In the UK the corresponding figure is 6%, also the lowest of any market.

People who are using AI chatbots for news are a highly engaged, digitally sophisticated segment of the news audience: 38% of people using AI chatbots fall into our ‘news lover’ segment, compared to 22% of respondents overall. They are characterised by the intensity and breadth of their news consumption, being far more likely to access multiple outlets, use a wide range of platforms and formats, and actively seek out information rather than encountering it passively. Their behaviour suggests strong familiarity with digital tools, reflected in higher use of search engines, messaging apps, and video platforms. They also appear more open to alternative sources of news, including individual journalists and news influencers, rather than relying solely on traditional institutional brands. AI chatbot users for news are best understood as ‘power news consumers’ generally – curious, experimental, with complex, multi-platform news diets. These characteristics can be seen when looking at people’s motivations for using AI chatbots. Individuals with higher underlying interest in news particularly like the ability to compile stories from different news outlets into a single response, to ask follow-up questions for more in-depth information or explanation, and being able to translate news from other languages.

After more than a decade of seeing news consumption shift from on-platform traffic to third-party search and social platforms, established news providers are concerned about whether the use of AI chatbots for news will make it even harder to attract audiences to owned news properties (and hence engage and monetise them directly). This is another aspect of the ‘Google Zero’ issue described earlier; specifically, will audiences be satisfied with the answers they get to news questions on AI chatbots and therefore be less likely to embark on onward journeys to owned news sites? We sought to investigate this by asking respondents about their behaviour in terms of clicking through from search engines, social media platforms, and AI chatbots to original news sources. (It is worth remembering this may be an area where there are differences between what people say they do and their actual behaviour.)

Overall, 42% of AI chatbot users for news say they always or often click through from chatbot answers to original news sources but there are wide variations by market. Clicking through is most popular in South Korea (56%), more than twice the reported click-through behaviour in Denmark (26%).