Felix M. Simon
@felixsimon.bsky.social
7.4K followers 790 following 1.3K posts
Research Fellow in AI and News, Reuters Institute, Oxford University | Research Associate & DPhil, Oxford Internet Institute | AI, news, (mis)info, democracy | Affiliate Tow Center, CITAP | Media advisor | My views etc… https://www.felixsimon.net/
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felixsimon.bsky.social
For those new to 🦋👋

I’m a research fellow in AI and news at @reutersinstitute.bsky.social at Oxford University. I mostly work on AI & news, with frequent excursions into misinfo & tech power, all tied to democracy & information ecosystems.

I am 🇩🇪 🇦🇹 🇪🇺 in 🇬🇧 and post about 👆(and a bit of banter…)
A sign saying 
REUTERS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM A picture of Oxford university in bright sunshine An Ai generated image of a Greek temple surrounded by flying pages in the style of Franz Marc An Ai generated image of an old computer terminal showing computer code in a 1970s newsroom
felixsimon.bsky.social
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
oii.ox.ac.uk
New survey research from @felixsimon.bsky.social and colleagues at the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social explores how people in six countries are engaging with AI in everyday life. 👇
felixsimon.bsky.social
🚨✨ 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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
rasmuskleis.bsky.social
"The generative AI wave isn’t coming — it’s already here, and it’s reshaping how the public finds information." @felixsimon.bsky.social has written about our recent report, including rapid growth in how many (and how) people use generative AI to get information www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/peop...
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."
www.niemanlab.org
felixsimon.bsky.social
Alternatively, a summary thread here: bsky.app/profile/feli...
felixsimon.bsky.social
🚨✨ 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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
felixsimon.bsky.social
🚨✨ 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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
richardfletcher.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
richardfletcher.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
richardfletcher.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
richardfletcher.bsky.social
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.
felixsimon.bsky.social
✨🤖 Check out our new research on AI use around news and information and attitudes towards AI in society and journalism – with @rasmuskleis.bsky.social & @richardfletcher.bsky.social
reutersinstitute.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
rasmuskleis.bsky.social
Finally, as search engines increasingly integrate AI generated answers, we asked about trust in these – the trust scores are high across the board, with higher net positives than any of the standalone tools.

All this and more in the report here reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/generative-a... 3/3
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
rasmuskleis.bsky.social
Asked whether they trust different AI tools, the picture is very differentiated, with net positive trust scores for e.g. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, but negatives for those that are seen as part of various social media companies 2/3
Reposted by Felix M. Simon
rasmuskleis.bsky.social
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
felixsimon.bsky.social
And ppl can still think something is "good" or "good enough", even if they don't fully trust it I guess. But we barely scratched the surface here, lots of follow up questions to be asked.
felixsimon.bsky.social
As for your point on use: Well, the other features still work so seeing an AI-generated overview that you don't think is great will not deter you from using the rest of Google Search (apart from the fact that it's baked into so much infrastructure, so convenience argument applies, too).
felixsimon.bsky.social
Thanks so much, Andy! I think seeing relatives use it (but also seeing myself use it) helped anchor my expectations here. "We (you and me)" are less trusting because we study this stuff all day long. And these answers can be correct and ppl can see that, so good reason to trust them some of the time
felixsimon.bsky.social
Thank you, David :-) @richardfletcher.bsky.social will be be able to confirm, but I'm afraid the answer is "No" given the way we asked. Given the primacy of the big systems, one could reasonably speculate it will mostly be one of them, however.

(And yes, read the report ;-)
felixsimon.bsky.social
I am also thankful to Masaharu Ban, Gretel Kahn, Priscille Biehlmann, Magnus Bredsdorff, and Tania Montalvo for their advice on the translations & @mitalilive.bsky.social, Kate Hanneford-Smith, Alex Reid, @eduardosuarez.bsky.social, Rebecca Edwards for helping to move this project forward.
felixsimon.bsky.social
@michelledisser.bsky.social helped with red-teaming the questionnaire and the interpretation of some of the results.
felixsimon.bsky.social
A big thank you to my co-authors @richardfletcher.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social for all their hard work. Caryhs Innes, Xhoana Beqiri, and the team at @yougov.co.uk were invaluable in fielding the survey and the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social research team helped with approaching the topic.