“Say Chatgpt, what’s new in the news?” Conversational agents based on artificial intelligence (AI) are beginning to be used as tools to learn, particularly by young people, according to an annual media report published on Tuesday.
“The conversational robots of AI are used as a source of information for the first time,” summarizes Mitali Mukherjee, director of the Reuters Institute for the study of journalism, in the introduction of their 2025 report on digital information.
Several users who ask through the “still low”
Published every year by this institute attached to the British University of Oxford, this report is considered a reference to analyze media transformations. It is based on online surveys conducted by the Yougov company with 97,000 people in 48 countries.
At the moment, the total number of respondents who say they are using every week to learn is “relatively low” (7%), according to the report. But this proportion is “higher” among young people: it increases to 12% between children under 35 and 15% among children under 25.
Among these tools, Chatgpt is the most used as a source of information, before Google Gemini and Meta call.
In addition, respondents judge these interesting tools to customize the news and make them more in line with the use of the user.
This implies, for example, summarizing elements to make them faster to read (27%of respondents), translate them (24%), make recommendations (21%) or even answer questions about news (18%).
Still skeptical users
Despite this emerging use, respondents, however, remain “skeptics of the use of AI in the field of information and prefer when humans continue to play a role.” They fear that the news produced mainly by the “less transparent” and “less reliable”.
The AI models are fed on Internet, including press content, to produce texts or images in a simple application made in everyday language.
To draw a remuneration, some media have chosen to make agreements with AI actors. On the contrary, others brought legal actions for the violation of copyright.
In more general terms than the issue of AI, the report is based on almost 200 pages the same general observation as in previous years: the loss of influence of traditional media (TV, radio, printed newspapers, websites …), for the benefit of social networks and video platforms.
In addition to weakening the economic viability of the media, this “inclination” has political consequences, the report points out: it has allowed “populist politicians”, such as “Donald Trump in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina, to avoid traditional media and resort to influencers, podcasters and youtubers that are favorable to them”, in the image of the American Rogan.
In southern Asia, influencers on the front line
As in previous years, the report indicates in particular the increase in video formats, with platforms that have become the main source of information for 44% of young people from 18 to 24 years.
Consequence: “Great YouTubers, Instagors and Tiktors gather great audiences” in countries such as “India, Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand”, to the population “young and large user of social networks.”
In Europe, “content creators that have been imposed are less, even if there are exceptions,” the report continues, citing Hugodécrypte in France. Its content, distributed mainly on YouTube and Tiktok, affects 22% of those under 35 years.
The boom in this model, the video information carried by a personality, represents an “important challenge” for the traditional media, Nic Newman, the main author of the report, emphasizes.
The video “presents very few advantages for the media, the consumption of information is mainly through platforms instead of through its website”, which is the source of its income, it develops.
Source: BFM TV
