The lack of accountability on the part of platforms is considered the greatest threat to the information environment. At the same time, pessimism about the sector’s outlook has risen steadily over the last four years. The proportion of experts anticipating a deterioration in the information landscape rose from 53 per cent in 2023 to 63 per cent in 2024, 72 per cent in 2025 and 76 per cent in 2026. The findings are presented in the report ‘Trends in the Information Environment: Results of the 2026 Expert Survey’, produced by the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) and published on 16 September.
According to the report, pessimism is more pronounced among experts analysing developed economies: 79 per cent anticipate the situation will worsen, compared with 71 per cent of those monitoring developing economies.
At the same time, 14 per cent of experts expect the situation to improve over the coming year, whilst 9 per cent do not anticipate any change.
However, the report’s authors state that the change from last year is not statistically significant. The proportion of those who believe the situation will worsen has risen from 72% to 76%. A difference of four percentage points is not sufficient, in their view, to determine whether the information environment is continuing to deteriorate or beginning to stabilise.
PLATFORMS AND MISINFORMATION, AHEAD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Experts regard the lack of accountability on the part of platforms as the main threat to the information environment. 78 per cent of respondents describe it as a ‘major’ or ‘extreme’ threat.
Next on the list is disinformation, cited by 73 per cent of experts. Polarisation is mentioned by 69 per cent, and the dominance of a small number of social media platforms by 64 per cent.
More than half of respondents – 53 per cent – believe that information bubbles and echo chambers also pose a “high” or “extreme” threat.
An expert from Finland quoted in the report argues that policy changes by certain platforms have had negative effects on public debate. He states that Facebook and X have contributed to the deterioration of political debate and have provided extremists with a receptive audience for promoting their ideas. The report specifies that the quotes are selected for illustrative purposes and do not indicate how widespread a particular opinion is.
Generative artificial intelligence is cited by 47 per cent of experts as a ‘major’ or ‘extreme’ threat. Although this is the lowest percentage amongst the six risks analysed, it remains a major or extreme threat for almost half of the experts.
AI-GENERATED VIDEOS RAISE THE GREATEST CONCERNS
Of the various forms of content generated by artificial intelligence, videos are the ones that raise the greatest concerns among experts. 67 per cent of respondents believe that AI-generated videos will contribute to the deterioration of the information environment over the next five years. For images, the figure is 63 per cent; for AI-generated voices, it stands at 61 per cent; and for text, at 50 per cent.
This ranking is similar to that of previous years. Experts are more concerned about AI-generated visual content than textual content.
However, the report also notes a discrepancy between the experts’ perceptions and the results of an IPIE meta-analysis of experimental studies. This suggests that AI-generated disinformation in text form may have greater persuasive potential than visual content. AI-generated text is increasingly perceived as credible, whilst people have become more sceptical of artificially generated images and videos.
The report also analyses, for the first time in 2026, the effects of AI-generated summaries in search engines. 79 per cent of experts believe that these summaries help users find the answers they are looking for more quickly. At the same time, 64 per cent expect them to reduce traffic to news websites, whilst 58 per cent believe they could narrow the range of viewpoints encountered by users.
Only 21 per cent of experts believe that more than half the population of the country they are analysing uses artificial intelligence tools to search for political information.
SEARCH ENGINES RATED MORE FAVOURABLY THAN SOCIAL MEDIA AND AI
Of the technologies analysed in the report, search engines receive the most favourable assessment. 80 per cent of experts have a positive view of their impact on society. The report specifies that this assessment does not distinguish between searches with and without AI-generated summaries and should not be interpreted as an assessment of AI-assisted searches, which the experts assessed separately and much less favourably.
Assessments are less favourable in the case of social media, recommendation systems and generative artificial intelligence. For these technologies, approximately 35–45 per cent of experts hold a positive view of their effects.
FUNDING: THE MAIN OBSTACLE TO RESEARCH INTO THE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT
The problems affect not only users and producers of information, but also researchers studying the information environment. 67 per cent of experts cite research funding as the main obstacle, whilst 60 per cent mention access to data.
Funding became the main issue in 2025 and remains the top concern in 2026 as well. Around a third of experts say they face pressure to align their research with the government’s political agenda or face forms of government control over research funding.
Around a quarter mention restrictions relating to confidentiality and data protection, government censorship or surveillance. According to the report, these pressures are reported more frequently than in 2025, and the largest increases are associated with political pressures.
ACCURATE INFORMATION AND DIVERSITY OF VOICES: ESSENTIAL FOR A HEALTHY INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT
For the fourth consecutive year, experts have identified accurate information and diversity of voices as the most important characteristics of a healthy information environment.
64 per cent of respondents consider accurate information to be ‘absolutely essential’, whilst 90 per cent say it is at least ‘extremely important’. As regards the diversity of voices, 47 per cent of experts consider it ‘absolutely essential’. Diversity of media ownership is cited in this regard by 41 per cent of respondents.
For many experts, the quality of information is a greater concern than its diversity. 76 per cent of experts say that people in the country they are analysing can find diverse viewpoints online, at least to some extent. In contrast, only 28 per cent believe that the majority of the population trusts the main media organisations to report political information accurately.
Furthermore, only 37 per cent of experts believe that the information available provides people with sufficient knowledge to participate in civic life.
The IPIE report is based on responses from 470 experts who study the information environment in 71 countries, nearly half of whom focus on developing economies.