Richard Fletcher

An idea for the future, perhaps!

People are using ChatGPT twice as much as they were last year. They’re still just as skeptical of AI in news. "For news organizations, our findings are in some ways bitter medicine."

No time to read the long version of our new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social research on use & views around GenAI, information, and news in 6 countries? Then read the summary, just out with @niemanlab.org.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/peop...

Not such good news …
@richardfletcher.bsky.social of @reutersinstitute.bsky.social at #NISWSW on #AI and #News

Talk and venue

#NISWSW started.
@richardfletcher.bsky.social of @reutersinstitute.bsky.social with the opening talk to set the scene.

People are using ChatGPT twice as much as they were last year. They’re still just as skeptical of AI in news. "For news organizations, our findings are in some ways bitter medicine."

People are using AI to research topics, answer factual questions, and ask for advice.

In essence, they're increasingly using it for tasks that were once the primary domain of search engines and, by extension, news publishers. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/peop...

Looking forward to presenting the results of this report at the News Impact Summit in Warsaw tomorrow.

ejc.net/events/news-...

Generative AI and news report 2025: How people think about AI’s role in journalism and society Our survey explores how people use generative AI in their everyday lives, what they think its impact will be on different areas of society, and what they think about its use in news and journalism spe...

If you are interested in how this all varies by country (in some cases, it does), check out the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social report, by @felixsimon.bsky.social @rasmuskleis.bsky.social and myself.

reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/generative-a...

But if we look at the difference between the proportion that trust and the proportion that distrust we start to see some patterns.

⬆️ A few systems, like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot are more trusted than distrusted.

⬇️ Others, like Meta AI and DeepSeek are more distrusted than trusted.

Finally, some data on trust. It's difficult to interpret data on trust in gen AI systems at the moment because there is limited public awareness - with the exception of ChatGPT, 50% or more have not even heard of them.

In more detail we can see that while most 'getting information' tasks have grown in the last year, most media creation tasks have not - with the exception of using generate AI to create images.

What are people using gen AI for?

We've seen a significant shift in the last year, with using AI to get information (e.g. answering factual questions) overtaking using it to create media (e.g. writing emails, making images).

Will this be the main use of gen AI in the future?

No surprises that there's an age gap in the use of gen AI, with use more widespread among younger people.

But this only applies to standalone systems like ChatGPT. For AI embedded in other products, like Meta AI and Copilot, there's no age gap because the host product is used by people of all ages.

On the use of specific systems, ChatGPT is still the most widely used (22% weekly) - ahead of Gemini (11%), Meta AI (9%) and Copilot (6%).

Worth remembering that the public's use of a lot of the tools favoured by experts, like Claude and Perplexity, is still very marginal - 1% weekly.

A thread on how people's use of generative AI has changed in the last year - based on survey data from 6 countries (🇬🇧🇺🇸🇫🇷🇩🇰🇯🇵🇦🇷 ).

First, gen AI use has grown rapidly.

Most people have tried out gen AI at least once (61%), and 34% now use it on a weekly basis - roughly doubling from 18% a year ago.

🤩 Meet our new Journalist Fellows joining us this term:

🇦🇺 Vince Chadwick
🇺🇸 Dante Dallago
🇧🇬 Boryana Dzhambazova
🇳🇬 Patrick Egwu
🇫🇮 Salla-Rosa Gröhn
🇮🇳 Banjot Kaur
🇬🇧 William Kremer
🇲🇽 Adriana Navarro Ramírez
🇭🇷 Barbara Strbac
🇵🇸 Shatha Yaish

reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/10-jour...

New paper on news avoidance around climate change, based on data from 8 countries.

We aim to add a bit of nuance to what we already know about news avoidance in general, particularly on the association between avoidance and specific emotional responses to climate news.

doi.org/10.1177/1464...

How do people think different sectors’ use of generative AI will change their experience of interacting with them?

More optimists than pessimists for e.g. science and search engines, but more pessimists than optimists for news media, government, and – especially – politicians 1/3

🚨✨ Publication alert: How do people in 6 countries (🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇦🇷 🇩🇰 🇯🇵 ) use AI 🤖 and think about it in the context of information, news, and institutions?

Our new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social survey research (n ≈ 12,000) with @richardfletcher.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social explores this.

How do people use generative AI in their daily lives? And how do they use it for news?
These are two of the questions we explore in a new report, based on fresh survey data from 🇦🇷🇩🇰🇫🇷🇯🇵🇬🇧🇺🇸

🔗 Full report
buff.ly/mv3Jc5r
🧵 Key findings in thread

Eduardo Suárez, appointed Director of Editorial of the Reuters Institute Under his leadership, the Institute’s original reporting and digital footprint has grown substantially. In his new enhanced role, he’ll create an in-depth series on journalism.

Great to see that @eduardosuarez.bsky.social has been appointed Director of Editorial at @reutersinstitute.bsky.social. The research team benefits hugely from having such a great comms team to promote and discuss our work (and the wider work of the Institute) - and I know everyone appreciates it.

Always a bit awkward to do these posts but I was delighted to learn at the Future of Journalism Conference last week that I won @digitaljournalism.bsky.social's Outstanding Article of the Year Award for my paper on how AI reshapes the news' dependency on platforms companies.

Delighted to take on this extra role alongside my current role as Director of Research!

Here are the papers at the Future of Journalism Conference 2025 presented by Reuters Institute researchers The presented research focuses on AI's role in misinformation and elections, how it can be used to illustrate climate news, and the effects of exposure to news about climate protests

Our research team will attend the @cujournmedcul.bsky.social #FoJ2025 this week presenting papers on AI, election misinformation, climate news and more.

Read the summaries of the research they'll be sharing below 👇

More details in the paper!

doi.org/10.1177/1464...

Worth noting that overall people are more likely to think that people their age, gender, and political views are covered fairly than unfairly (though large %s say don't know).

Also important to remember that these are people's perceptions. People can see fairness or unfairness where there is none.

We do not find much evidence of this.

But, middle-aged people in countries with more middle-aged journalists are more likely to think coverage of people their age is fair.

That's not to say representation isn't important - and for various reasons it is hard to find patterns at the national level

We used @worldsofjournalism.bsky.social data to see whether fairness perceptions map onto demographic differences within the journalistic profession (eg. are women more likely to think they are covered fairly in countries with more women journalists?)

Those on the left and right are typically less likely than those in the centre to think their political views are covered fairly - but the results vary a lot by country.

In the US those on the right are much less likely to think their views are covered fairly, but this is not a common pattern.

In most countries women are less likely than men to think that coverage of people their gender is fair.

Perceived fairness of coverage of "people my age" tends to have a curved relationship with age - so the youngest and oldest are less likely to think coverage is fair than those in middle age.