Americans Use AI for News More Than Before, But Most Still Don't Want It Writing It

Generative AI tools are steadily becoming one of the main ways people find information, but most people still don't want machines writing their news. That's the central finding of a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which surveyed audiences across nine countries, including the United States, on how they use AI and what they think about it in journalism.

Felix Simon, a research fellow at the Reuters Institute and a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, wrote about the findings on Nieman Lab on Nov. 10. He said the data backs up his prediction from a year earlier that AI would grow as an information gateway in 2026.

Use of standalone chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini is climbing quickly. Across the six countries where the team has past data, 51 percent of respondents said they now use AI weekly. In the U.S., the figure is 49 percent. Simon noted that, at least in America, that spread is faster than what smartphones or the internet experienced.

A lot of exposure happens without people seeking out AI at all. Fifty-seven percent of respondents across countries said they had seen or engaged with AI-generated answers or summaries from search engines like Google and Bing in the last week, a form of zero-click search. News organizations contribute too. On average across the nine countries, 24 percent said they had seen a label noting that content was made with AI, and 20 percent had come across a bullet-point AI news summary.

AI agents, which have drawn plenty of attention in the tech industry, have not yet reached most people. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they had not used an AI agent in the last week. Fourteen percent used one for a real task, and 13 percent tried one just to experiment.

The biggest shift is in how people use AI to get information. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they had used generative AI to get information in the last week, compared with 24 percent in 2025 and 11 percent in 2024. In the U.S., that number is 35 percent. When the researchers looked closer, they found the behavior resembles search. The most common uses across the six long-tracked countries were researching a topic, at 24 percent, and answering factual questions, at 18 percent. Another 20 percent said they increasingly turn to AI for advice.

How Many People Use AI to Get News?

Using AI directly for news is still a niche activity, but it is growing. Nine percent of respondents across the six core countries said they use AI for news, up from 6 percent in 2025 and 3 percent in 2024.

Do People Trust AI-Generated Answers?

Many people do not have firm opinions on whether AI output can be trusted. Among those who do rely on it, trust is high. Across the nine countries, 75 percent of people who used AI to answer factual questions trusted the answers. The figure was 76 percent for advice and 72 percent for news. Only small minorities expressed distrust.

Trust, however, does not appear to be the main reason people turn to these tools. The convenience of a faster, easier answer was the top reason, cited by 64 percent. The ability to interact in natural language came next at 56 percent. Just 21 percent said they used AI because it gave them more reliable information than other sources.

Simon argued that this could weigh on news publishers and on the search giants that have long dominated online discovery. He pointed to comments from coauthor Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, who said that people who use AI for information also report using news sites and search engines less, and by a wider margin. Simon wrote that people are skipping legacy platforms and established publishers in favor of answers that are "good enough." That makes discovery, brand attribution, data collection and monetization harder for publishers.

Do People Want AI to Write the News?

Attitudes toward AI in journalism have barely moved. Public discomfort is deep, though it has not worsened significantly. Across the nine countries, only 12 percent of respondents said they were very or somewhat comfortable with news made entirely by AI. With some human oversight, that figure rises to 19 percent. The gap between human-made and AI-made news shows up in every country surveyed. Breaking news and straight reporting draw similar skepticism, and commentary and opinion draw even more.

The report also found that the divide between people who use AI and those who don't is widening. Simon said expectations for AI differ more sharply between daily users and people who have never used it than between any other groups in the survey. He warned that this matters beyond personal choices, especially where governments and public institutions adopt AI in ways that affect people who don't use it.

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