LONDON, 20 September 2026 — One in five UK adults now uses an AI app or service to keep up with news, according to Ofcom’s latest national news-consumption research. The finding puts generative AI alongside search engines, social platforms and aggregators as a meaningful gateway to journalism—while also exposing a sharp trust gap.
How many people are using AI for news?
Ofcom found that 21% of adults had used an AI service to access news in the previous month. ChatGPT was the most frequently named AI tool, used for news by 13% of adults. Use was concentrated among younger people and adults in more affluent households, so the headline figure should not be read as evenly distributed across the population.
This is the first time Ofcom’s annual report has examined AI intermediaries in this detail, making the 2026 figures a useful baseline rather than proof of a long-term trend.
Are people abandoning publishers and television?
No. Online access is now near-universal, but established channels still matter. Ofcom recorded 82% of adults accessing news online in the past month and 79% using television. Adults encountered about 12 news sources on average each month, rising to 18 among people aged 25 to 34.
Almost three-quarters of adults, 73%, received news through intermediaries such as social media, video platforms, search, aggregators or AI. At the same time, 57% used publishers’ own websites and apps directly.
Do readers trust AI-written news?
Caution remains pronounced. Fifty-six per cent of adults said they were less trusting of an AI-written news story than one written by a person. That distinction matters: using AI to locate, summarise or query news is not necessarily the same as trusting it to report events independently.
For readers, the practical safeguard is to check whether an answer identifies the original reporting, dates its information and links to primary evidence. Confident wording is not evidence of accuracy.
How important are social and video platforms?
They remain the largest intermediary route. Sixty per cent of adults used social-media or video-sharing platforms for news in the past month, rising to 78% among 16-to-24-year-olds and children aged 12 to 15. Facebook reached 39% of adults for news and YouTube 33%. Yet only 2% relied exclusively on these platforms, suggesting most people still assemble news from several routes.
What does this change for news publishers?
Publishers increasingly have to serve two audiences at once: people who visit directly and people who encounter reporting through a machine-curated layer. Clear headlines, visible dates, named sources and links to original documents help both groups. They also make it easier for readers to distinguish reporting from generated summaries or commentary.
Primary sources: Ofcom’s 15 September news release; Ofcom News Consumption in the UK 2026 research hub.
Illustrative image: Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash. Reporting basis: official material available on 20 September 2026.