The proportion of people using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to consume news in South Korea has doubled over the past year.

Richard Fletcher, associate director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, made the remarks today (the 13th) while presenting the Digital News Report 2026—a survey of about 100,000 people across 48 countries this year—at the Future of News Seoul seminar hosted by Reuters at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square Seoul.

According to Fletcher, the proportion of South Koreans using AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini as a news source rose from 7 percent last year to 14 percent this year, marking a steeper growth rate than the global average (which increased from 7 percent to 10 percent).

"While checking headlines remains the most common use of AI chatbots, younger generations are using AI more actively to navigate the news, going beyond simple verification to finding and evaluating news sources, or summarizing content to make it easier to understand," he explained.

The feature liked most by AI chatbot users was the ability to "ask follow-up questions about points of interest," with 42 percent of all users citing it as the top advantage.

South Korea also recorded the highest rate among surveyed countries for moving from AI chatbots to original news articles, at 56 percent.

This is more than double the rate of Denmark (26 percent) and higher than the rates of transitioning to original articles via search engines (44 percent) or social media (36 percent).

Fletcher stated that in this year's survey, social media and video networks surpassed both television and news outlets' own websites and apps for the first time on record to become the most-used news source globally.

The usage rate for social media and video networks stood at 54 percent, outpacing television (52 percent) and websites and apps (51 percent).

However, in South Korea, the proportion of people using social media and video networks as a news source was 47 percent, still trailing television at 58 percent.

Nevertheless, looking at YouTube alone, 61 percent of South Koreans answered that they used it to watch news, a notably high figure among the surveyed countries.

Globally, Fletcher explained, the 18 to 24 age group, which was the "online generation" in 2015, completely shifted into the "social generation" by 2025.

Among this age group, Instagram emerged as the preferred social news platform, while Facebook fell to the bottom.

Overall news trust stood at 37 percent, hitting its lowest level since the survey began.

It fell 3 percentage points from the previous year, with significant drops observed in two-thirds of the surveyed countries.

South Korea's news trust level held relatively steady at 30 percent.

Analyzing the decline in trust, Fletcher suggested, "It appears to stem from distrust in the distribution environment itself, such as social media, rather than individual news brands."

He cited the fact that the drop in trust for individual news brands was smaller than the drop in trust for news in general.

Fletcher categorized and introduced news creators and influencers into types such as current affairs commentary, investigative journalism, youth-oriented explanatory, and niche specialized formats.

He noted that the proportion of people using news creators was higher in the Asian market than in Europe.

Globally, 27 percent access news from current affairs-focused creators, and nearly half of them—47 percent—said they satisfy most of their news needs through creators.

Translating this as a proportion of the general population, about 13 percent rely primarily on creators, he added.

However, he evaluated that creators are playing a complementary role rather than replacing traditional media.

This is because respondents rated creator content as easy to understand and entertaining, but viewed its reliability and fairness as lower than traditional media.

The proportion of online news paid subscriptions remained stagnant at 17 percent with little change this year.

Among those who paid, 56 percent directed their spending to traditional news organizations, while the rest was split among donations or payments to individual creators.

"People cited the direct benefit of information access as the primary reason for paying for news," Fletcher explained, adding that "social motivations, such as wanting to support journalists or feeling a sense of affinity with a particular outlet, also play a fairly strong role."

In the subsequent panel discussion centered on securing younger audiences, participants included Zhang Xin Zheng, head of spark at Singaporean outlet Mothership; Joey Peng, head of content services at LINE Taiwan; and MINA Yoo, CEO of VMOTIONS.

Zhang Xin Zheng introduced that Mothership, a digital media company founded in 2014, has expanded its touchpoints with younger generations from the outset by focusing on social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

"The optimal length of video content continues to shrink; while 3- to 5-minute videos were fine in 2017, even 1- to 3-minute videos now feel long," she explained, adding, "Because modern readers want 'experience' rather than simple information gathering, video is effective in conveying a sense of presence and emotion."

She added, however, that text articles remain valid, and visual contents such as card news or illustrations can serve as a compromise between information volume and engagement.

Joey Peng stated that from the perspective of a news distribution platform that does not engage in direct reporting, they are targeting younger audiences on both content and product fronts.

She explained that they are building relationships through fandom-based content such as sports and entertainment, while actively recruiting news creators and opinion leaders as content providers.

She also shared that they recently revamped their service from a multi-category homepage layout to a vertical scrolling feed.

MINA Yoo, a solo journalist who has operated a YouTube news channel since 2020, said that her credibility as a news source increased significantly after collaborating with Reuters starting in 2021.

She also pointed to the mainstream adoption of short-form content as the biggest change she felt this year, noting that fast and concise information delivery and storytelling have become crucial.

(Photo: Yonhap News)