Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report 2025

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
Use of AI tools rose to 31% of adults, but trust in AI did not increase, with 52% of AI-aware adults saying they would trust a human-written article more.See it on page 4
02
Only half of search engine users could identify sponsored links on search results, a result that has shown no marked improvement since 2018.See it on page 16
03
The share of online adults who responded appropriately to a mock-up scam email fell to 83%, from 86% in 2023.See it on page 18
04
Nearly half of internet users (49%) said they had seen a misleading or false story on social media, up from 45% in 2023.See it on page 10
05
Six in ten online communication platform users said the benefits outweigh the risks, up from around half (52%) in 2022.See it on page 31
06
Men were more likely than women to believe the benefits of online communication platforms outweigh the risks (63% vs 56%).See it on page 32
07
Older adults were more likely to recognise paid partnerships and sponsored links, with over-65s the best at spotting paid partnerships at 86%.See it on page 16

Summary

Ofcom's Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report 2025, published 7 May 2025, draws mainly on its Adults' Media Literacy Tracker surveys of UK adults aged 16 and over, with fieldwork in 2024, and supplements them with qualitative Adults' Media Lives interviews. The report covers trust and personal information, critical evaluation of online information, online behaviours, online attitudes and wellbeing, and digital exclusion. Age is described as the strongest indicator of media literacy, confidence and attitudes.

Use of AI has grown: 31% of adults say they have used tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini, up from 23% in 2023. However, 52% of adults aware of AI said they would trust a human-written article more than an AI-written one, while 15% would trust the AI-written article more. Awareness of content recommendation algorithms rose to 85% of internet users, from 81% in 2023.

Only 51% of search engine users identified sponsored links, while 83% responded appropriately to a mock-up scam email, down from 86% in 2023. Among social media users, 76% correctly identified a fake profile as not genuine, with 16-24s most likely to do so at 86%.

On attitudes, six in ten users said the benefits of online communication platforms outweigh the risks, compared with 52% in 2022. Home internet access stood at 94% in 2024, and 18% of internet users went online only via smartphone.