The feed has replaced the front page: Report says AI, TikTok and creators are changing how we get news

KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 — Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, short-form video, and independent content creators are rapidly transforming how people consume news worldwide, posing new challenges to traditional media organisations struggling to retain audiences, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026.

The latest report, based on nearly 100,000 interviews with online news consumers across 48 markets, found audiences are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools, video platforms, and personality-driven content for news, accelerating a shift away from traditional news publishers.

It reported a growing use of AI chatbots as one of the most significant developments in digital news consumption, with users beginning to rely on conversational AI to summarise, explain and personalise news content instead of visiting news websites directly.

“The use of AI chatbots for news is growing quickly but not as quickly as AI use for other purposes: 10 per cent of people use AI chatbots for news, up from seven per cent last year.

“Usage is predominantly by those most interested in news and is more concentrated among younger audiences (16 per cent of under-35s report using AI chatbots for news),” according to the report released by Reuters Institute this week.

The research also found the continued rise of news video, particularly among younger audiences, as social media platforms increasingly become the primary gateway to news consumption.

Alongside this trend is the growing influence of independent news creators and influencers who are attracting audiences through personality-led content that many users perceive as more relatable and authentic than institutional journalism.

“Around a quarter (27 per cent) of respondents globally get some news from news-focused individual creators or influencers, and almost half (46 per cent) get some news from creators of any type.

“Respondents say creators are more entertaining, easier to understand, and more relatable than traditional news outlets. On average, people think creators are less trustworthy and less impartial compared to other attributes such as authenticity and relatability,” it said.

It noted that since the pandemic, growth in the use of third-party platforms has been concentrated among platforms which are video-led rather than text-based.

The first wave of social media growth hit newspapers hardest. Now the second wave is affecting news organisations’ TV and video interests.

It said that while Facebook remains the biggest platform overall for news consumption, TikTok and Instagram have been identified as the fastest growing video-led networks in driving much of the change alongside YouTube.

The report also found interest in news, together with trust in news, are falling. 

Since 2021, the proportion of people saying they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested in the news has fallen by an average of 13 per cent across the markets surveyed, while a quarter said they are now casual or passive news users who typically only consume news once a week and say they have little to no interest in it, up from 16 per cent in 2021. 

“Trust in news has fallen in 29 of our 48 markets this year, resulting in a drop overall to the lowest level we have recorded since we started to measure trust in 2015 (37 per cent).

“Some of this worldwide drop in trust reflects wider anxieties beyond the news industry — trust in institutions and leaders is widely declining, and journalism is also often under direct attack from high-profile politicians,” the report added.

It claimed that this reduction in trust is related to changes in the news consumption mix.

Social media and video networks have long been trusted less than traditional news media, so trust overall is prone to go down as more people’s consumption tends towards using social media and video networks (and AI chatbots) for news at the expense of legacy sources.

“We can probably expect trust in news overall to fall further in future, but trust for many established news providers appears to be defying this trend.

Concerns about fake news are also up, by four per cent to 62 per cent on average, with jumps of more than five per cent in 11 markets. 

The findings also suggest traditional news organisations are facing mounting pressure to retain audiences.

“2026 represents a significant milestone: for the first time, social media and video network consumption is now ahead of other news sources as the most widely used source of news globally (54 per cent of all audiences),” the report said.

The use of both TV news and news organisations’ websites and apps has fallen by 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively since 2020.

“The relative decline of television as a source of news is well recognised across the industry. What is perhaps less well acknowledged is that people’s use of news websites and apps has declined at a similar rate in recent years,” the report said.

The continued drift away from traditional sources of news can lead news organisations to battle for a share of attention in the places where audience intent and loyalty are lowest, and the prospects for monetisation are most challenging.

Many publishers are starting to reflect on what their social media strategy is actually yielding, while at the same time focusing on how to maximise the engagement and value of the smaller but more loyal audience which continues to read, watch, and listen to news organisations’ own outlets, it added. — Bernama