Reuters Institute: AI chatbots for news rise to 10% usage

Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026 finds weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose from 7 to 10 percent worldwide. Just 1 percent of respondents say AI chatbots are their main news source, and the increase is concentrated in markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Southern and Eastern Europe.

Who is using chatbots for news?

Young, avid news consumers and people at the political extremes use chatbots for news more than average: 17 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use them weekly, while the oldest age group sits at 5 percent. The 25-to-34 bracket recorded the strongest relative growth, jumping 4 percentage points, and self-described "news lovers" hit 18 percent versus 7 percent among casual consumers.

Usage also skews by political intensity: 16 percent of people on the far left and 15 percent on the far right use chatbots for news. The growth is not evenly spread — Reuters Institute notes higher uptake in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Southern and Eastern Europe, rather than in wealthier Western markets.

How are people using chatbots and do they trust them?

Follow-up questions top the list of functions at 42 percent, followed by getting current news at 35 percent, summaries at 34 percent, checking the reliability of news sources at 33 percent, and simplifying news at 30 percent. In markets with low press freedom such as Hong Kong and Turkey, and in markets with low trust in news like Hungary and Romania, using chatbots to check source reliability ranks especially high.

Trust figures remain low overall: 37 percent of respondents trust most news, and trust in news from AI chatbots sits at 20 percent among the general population. Among actual chatbot users, 44 percent trust AI-generated news, compared with 17 percent trust among non-users. Speed and depth drive use: 42 percent of users say they want more depth or explanation, and 39 percent say AI is faster than other ways of getting news.

Click behaviour is strikingly different from other platforms. Across respondents in 27 markets, only 4 percent say they always or often click from AI chatbots to original sources, versus 19 percent for search engines and 17 percent for social media. When chatbot users do click, 44 percent say they click to verify facts and 43 percent to check the source. Chatbot users who click are less likely to seek more detail, 51 percent, compared with 59 percent for search engines and 60 percent for social media.

Why it matters

Chatbots combine two forces that shape public information: personalization and answer-style delivery. The Reuters Institute highlights two risks. First, chatbots tend to confirm user preconceptions rather than push back, a tendency that could deepen polarization since usage exceeds average among political fringes. Second, highly personalized answers erode a common information baseline by fragmenting what different users see.

The same mechanics also create upside: simplification, translation and synthesis can make complex topics more accessible. The report finds 33 percent of users translate content into a preferred language using chatbots, and 35 percent use them to pull together reports from multiple media sources. For users actively seeking diverse perspectives, a chatbot can provide broader synthesis than a single outlet.

What to watch

Track clickthrough rates and trust in the next Digital News Report cycle: the current baseline is 4 percent who always or often click from chatbots to original sources. Publishers should watch whether those rates rise, and whether chatbot users shift from verification clicks to seeking greater detail, which would change how newsrooms prioritise formats and sourcing.

The Reuters Institute recommends that publishers focus on original reporting and journalistic credibility — the things chatbots cannot replace — while monitoring whether chatbots push audiences toward more or less verifiable and shared information.