Majority of Americans do not rely on AI to get their news, new poll finds

A new poll found that Americans are resisting using artificial intelligence in news consumption. 

According to a Gallup poll, just 2% of Americans relied “a great deal” on artificial intelligence for the news, while 5% said they relied on it a “fair amount.” Twelve percent said they relied on AI “some” to get their news, and 23% said “only a little.” 

The majority of adults in the U.S., at 57%, do not rely at all on artificial intelligence to get their news. The use of AI in the U.S. has been relatively low as initially measured in a 2023 Gallup survey, but it has significantly increased since then.

Younger adults, ages 18 to 49, were more likely to rely on AI tools for news and information (10%), as opposed to adults aged 50 or older (3%), although a majority of both age groups said they did not rely on it.

Artificial intelligence was least likely to be chosen as a news source, compared to radio (17%), search engines (16%), podcasts (13%), and magazines (8%). 

Many Americans (39%) also said that the use of AI would decrease their trust in the content outright. However, one-in-five Americans said that their trust in news content would increase if news consumers could fact-check the information themselves or with a different source (22%), or if the news organization said a human editor had vetted the information (20%).

Meanwhile, the most common way that Americans consumed the news over a seven-day period was from social media (54%), with news websites or apps following just behind (44%). 

Many people still rely on traditional media outlets, including 28% mostly relying on network TV news, and 20% cable news.

Twenty-five percent also said they got their news primarily from friends, family or coworkers. 

The results are from a May 4-17 survey of 2,062 adults in the U.S. who are members of the Gallup Panel.