The use of AI chatbots to consume news is growing at a rapid pace, but this trend isn’t playing out evenly across the globe.
According to the latest survey, one in ten people now turn to tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini to stay informed every week — a three-percentage-point jump compared to the previous year. That number might seem small at first glance, but it represents a significant shift in the digital habits of millions of people. And here is the interesting part: that growth is concentrated in very specific regions of the world. 👇
The Digital News Report 2026, produced by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, hit a historic milestone this year. For the first time ever, social media and video platforms surpassed traditional news outlets as a global source of news. And it is within this context of migration toward digital intermediaries that chatbots are emerging as the next platform worth watching closely. Let’s break down what is behind these numbers.
Where the use of chatbots for news is growing
When we look at the 48 markets analyzed in the report, it becomes clear that growth is far from universal. The expansion is concentrated in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, along with Southern and Eastern Europe. Some examples are pretty striking: in South Korea, weekly usage doubled, jumping from 7% to 14%. In Peru, it rose from 6% to 11%. And in Spain, it went from 4% to 8%.
On the other hand, markets that already had strong tech familiarity remain essentially flat. In the United States, usage stayed steady at 6%. In the United Kingdom (4%), Germany (5%), and Denmark (5%), the numbers hovered around the same levels as the year before — all below the global average. In other words, the rise of chatbots as a news source is being driven by emerging markets, not by the countries typically considered the most digitally mature.
This pattern is no coincidence. The geography of chatbot usage for news closely mirrors the geography of platform usage in general. Countries where people already rely more heavily on search engines, social media, video platforms, and aggregators to stay informed also tend to show higher rates of AI usage for the same purpose. This suggests that chatbot adoption is being built on top of an existing tendency to consume information through digital intermediaries. 🌎
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Trust is the key to understanding the differences between markets
Trust stands out as one of the most important factors in explaining why adoption varies so much from one place to another. Markets that show greater trust in chatbots for news also tend to report higher levels of usage. And here is a fascinating point: the relationship between trust and usage is significantly stronger for AI than it is for social media.
Why does that happen? Most likely because using a chatbot requires a more active choice. On social media and video platforms, people tend to stumble into news accidentally while doing other things. With chatbots, the user has to intentionally type a prompt or ask a question. That deliberate effort makes trust a much more relevant consideration in the decision to use the tool.
This same pattern holds at the individual level, and the numbers paint a striking contrast. Among the general population, trust in news from chatbots is low: only 20% of people surveyed say they trust that type of content most of the time. For comparison, 37% trust news in general.
But when the focus shifts to people who actually use chatbots to stay informed, the picture changes completely. Among those users, trust more than doubles, reaching 44%. This gap reveals two things: first, the low overall trust is largely driven by people who do not even use the technology for news; and second, those who try the tool tend to find it works reasonably well. 🤖
Age still divides chatbot usage for news
Age group continues to be one of the sharpest dividing lines in this landscape, reflecting the faster adoption of AI among younger people in general. Among people aged 18 to 24, 17% use chatbots for news every week. For those 55 and older, that number drops to just 5%.
However, there is an important detail: the growth over the past year came mainly from adults between 25 and 54. This indicates that AI usage for news is expanding beyond the early adopters, reaching a broader audience. Usage is also higher among people who already have the habit of staying informed frequently: it reaches 18% among the most intensive news consumers, compared to 7% among those who check the news only once a day.
What people actually use chatbots for
Adoption rates only tell part of the story. To understand how chatbots fit into people’s information habits, the report also asked users what they do with these tools. And the results here are quite revealing.
Across 45 markets, the most common use was asking a follow-up question about a news story, cited by 42% of users. But people go well beyond that. Here are the top uses identified:
- About 35% simply ask the chatbot for the latest news;
- 34% use the tool to summarize a story;
- 33% turn to AI to evaluate whether a source is trustworthy;
- 30% ask for help making a news story easier to understand.
Putting it all together, it becomes clear that people are not using chatbots just to receive news. They are using them to navigate, interpret, evaluate, and simplify information. That is a much more active and sophisticated role than most people imagined at the start.
Preferred uses change from country to country
Usage preferences also vary considerably by region. In Taiwan and South Korea, where news consumption is already heavily mediated by platforms and aggregators, searching for the latest news is the most cited use. In Canada and the United Kingdom, summarizing stories takes the lead. Meanwhile, in Austria, Germany, and Japan, users tend to turn to chatbots to understand complex stories.
Trust also shapes these behaviors. In Hong Kong and Turkey, where the perception of press freedom is relatively low, and in lower-trust markets like Hungary and Romania, using AI to evaluate news sources ranks among the most frequent uses. This shows that, just like with news consumption itself, the role of chatbots depends heavily on the information environment of each place.
What this means for news organizations
These emerging uses point to both challenges and opportunities for news organizations. Some of the most popular applications reveal audience needs that journalism is perfectly positioned to meet — like providing context, offering explanations, and helping people make sense of the world around them.
But part of the appeal of chatbots lies precisely in their ability to deliver personalized, low-effort responses at scale. That is a capability individual news outlets may struggle to match. As AI becomes more embedded in people’s habits, and also within search engines and other platforms, the path forward may be less about replicating chatbot features and more about reinforcing what makes journalism distinct and valuable in an environment increasingly dominated by platforms.
For now, chatbots are still a secondary news source for most users — only 1% of people globally point to them as their primary source of information. But the growth has been rapid, especially among younger audiences. This suggests that the influence of these tools on news consumption will likely keep expanding, even if that growth plays out differently in each market. 📱
At the end of the day, what we are looking at is a shift that goes well beyond a simple tech fad. The way people engage with information is being reshaped, and tracking this data year after year is the best way to understand where the future of media is headed. 🚀
