A fast-approaching ‘Google Zero’, liquid content, video-fication of everything, AI slop and increased focus on determining the digital provenance of information are some factors that could shape how news is consumed and produced in 2026 according to a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The nearly 50-page report titled ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026’ sums up the many anxieties harboured by both, those who produce the news and those who consume it. But there are some silver linings.

Wavering confidence

It says something when out of the 280 news executives from 51 countries, who participated in a survey for the study, only 38% were confident about the prospects for journalism in the year ahead. 

Among the reasons for this pessimism is how populist politicians are “ignoring, denigrating, or undermining journalism as part of an international playbook to reduce scrutiny”. The report highlighted the role of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump in bypassing traditional media.

“Populist politicians have discovered the way to disintermediate the role of traditional media by labelling it as fake news and threatening or exercising legal action, putting additional pressure on media organisations and their business model,” a media executive quoted in the report said.

The report also noted the decline in press freedom globally, citing the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2025 World Press Freedom Index. India ranks 151st out of 180 countries in the index – a damning indictment of the state of media in the world’s largest democracy.

Other factors contributing to the lack of confidence in journalism include the unpredictability of AI-driven changes to how news is discovered by the audience and the failure of legacy media to remain relevant among certain sections of society – especially young people.

However, the section of media leaders that remain hopeful about their prospects belong largely to the cohort of subscription-based publishers, indicating that having a strong, direct relationship with the audience is the key to survival in this media landscape. 

Has Google Zero arrived?

Not quite. But it isn’t too far, the report suggests. Coined by the Verge’s Nilay Patel, Google Zero is a term that refers to a scenario where the search engine ceases to direct any traffic to other sites, instead retaining users on its own AI-generated overviews. 

“Publishers expect traffic from search engines to decline by more than 40% over the next three years – not quite 'Google Zero' but a substantial impact none the less,” the report said.

The audience is also increasingly turning to platforms like Chat GPT for daily queries, including the latest news. Although the platform offers citations and back links to the source of its quoted information, data shows that its overall contribution of traffic to news sites is 500 times lower than Google or, in other words, negligible.

Which way are news publishers looking?

As news publishers deal with AI bots and platforms repurposing their content as bite-sized summaries, the report predicts a shift towards “personalised content experiences”. This means more ground reporting, investigations, contextual explanations, less general news and an increased focus on liquid content – where stories can switch between text, video and audio formats depending on the users’ preference.

“These developments meant that content is becoming increasingly liquid, in that the format can be changed – actively or passively – based on the viewer’s context, interaction, time or location. This means that it will be harder for publishers to control how news stories look in the future. It will also be harder to know how content is being used,” the report said.

Another tool to cope with the AI wave is putting a face to the news quite literally. Three-quarters of the publisher respondents(76%) surveyed for the Reuters report said that they would be getting journalists to behave more like creators this year. News organisations are looking to build a closer relationship with their audience by showing them just who is producing the news that they are reading.

However, helping journalists build their personal profile can also backfire as the Washington Post learned with the departure of their TikTok guy, Dave Jorgenson in July 2025. The Post’s Youtube channel that hosted Jorgenson’s video crashed immediately, with viewers migrating to his new platform overnight.

The overall distrust in the media…

…is probably here to stay. A recent poll in the US cited in the Reuters report said that most teens associated words like 'fake’, ‘lies’, and ‘bias’ with journalists. But the institute's own research shows that this perspective is not confined to the US or to young people. 

“The survey shows that a significant proportion in most countries deeply distrust the news media overall, with others happy to rely on user comments or even AI chatbots to check the facts,” the report said.

At the same time, with more AI slop on the way, there could be a growing demand for verification and ‘human-checked’ high-quality content, the report said.

Endnote

The sector remains in a state of flux with some turbulence ahead. But, at least for digital media, where the landscape is increasingly dominated by AI-generated summaries and misinformation, the very qualities under threat – verification, accountability and human input – may also be what ultimately distinguish journalism from slop.

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