Do Americans Use AI for News?

• Most Americans do not rely on AI for news, with roughly 60% saying they never or rarely get news from AI.
• AI has not replaced traditional news habits, as user behavior is shifting more toward social.
• 71.7% of Americans who use AI for news have seen it produce false information.
• Only 7.1% of Americans trust AI more than traditional news.

AI is everywhere right now.

It writes emails, summarizes meetings, and helps people find answers in seconds.

But when it comes to keeping up with the world, we wanted to know: Is AI actually changing how Americans get their news?

So we partnered with global research data and analytics group, YouGov, to survey 1,000 Americans on whether they’re using AI for news — and how they’re interacting with it.

Jump to methodology.

Americans Don’t Get News From AI

Let’s start with the big one: based on our results, about 36.5% of users say they never get their news from AI sources, and another 23.6% say they rarely do.

For the purposes of our study, we included AI Overviews or AI Mode, social media AI such as Grok, and chatbots such as ChatGPT or Perplexity as “AI sources”.

Just 7.1% said that they always or often get their news from AI.

About One-Third of Americans Who Get News From AI Click on Links

Of those who have gotten their news from AI sources, only 32.1% click through.

AI chatbots like Gemini offer options to click through, as seen below, but many news publisher sites have seen significant traffic drops.

Despite the fact that Google claims “Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year, ” the Press Gazette reported US publishers saw a 39% drop in Google referral traffic in 2025, via data from Reuters.

This shrinking click-through rate has clearly caused big problems with news publisher sites across the web. But it’s not fair to say that AI is the main cause of these drops.

Users are searching for information in different ways, which is causing a lot of these kinds of drops. Neiman Lab reported that social media is increasingly overtaking traditional news sites as a source of news.

So why hasn’t AI taken off as a news alternative?

I think the answer may lie in a problem that has plagued AI results: hallucinations.

AI Hallucinates News Information, Majority of Readers/Users Say

Based on our results, 71.7% of Americans who use AI for news have caught it hallucinating information about the news at some point.

Every AI tool does it. OpenAI even provided a great explanation of why it happens with ChatGPT.

Remember, AI isn’t a search engine; it’s entirely probabilistic.

So, when it answers a question, it formulates an answer based on the likelihood of the next word occurring.

This leads to incorrect answers and citations.

So where does this all lead us?

Unsurprisingly, Americans Don’t Trust AI For News

Ultimately, we could see where this is all leading: just 7.1% of users trust AI more or somewhat more than traditional news broadcasts or newspapers.

About 40% trust AI much less, with an additional 17.8% who trust it just somewhat less than traditional news.

Depending on who you ask, AI may be getting better at hallucinating, but until it eliminates it entirely, it may be stuck in limbo as a news source.

So What Does This Mean for News Publishers?

We’ve seen many announcements of newsrooms integrating AI into their workflows, which are causing staff layoffs. Others are fighting lost revenue by entering into licensing partnerships with AI.

But AI hasn’t meaningfully changed the behavior of news consumers.

The real question is when and if AI tools can earn the kind of credibility and transparency people expect when the stakes are higher than planning dinner or writing a caption.

Methodology

YouGov surveyed 1,000 Americans through its survey platform on January 15, 2026. For questions about AI news consumption habits (i.e. clicking links provided by AI and experiences with hallucinations), we omitted responses from respondents who chose “N/A,” indicating they do not consume news through AI.

Vince Nero

Vince is the Director of Content Marketing at Buzzstream. He thinks content marketers should solve for users, not just Google. He also loves finding creative content online. His previous work includes content marketing agency Siege Media for six years, Homebuyer.com, and The Grit Group. Outside of work, you can catch Vince running, playing with his 2 kids, enjoying some video games, or watching Phillies baseball.

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Website: https://www.buzzstream.com