Norway ranks near the top globally for artificial intelligence adoption, with more than half of the population using services like ChatGPT every week and a quarter using them daily, according to a Reuters Institute survey from the University of Oxford.
Weekly AI Usage Surpasses Most Nations
Norway stands second out of nine surveyed countries, trailing only Argentina in weekly artificial intelligence use. Eurostat data released this year similarly found that European use rates peak in Norway. One in four Norwegians currently accesses a paid artificial intelligence service, either through personal funds, employers, or schools, representing the highest paid access rate in the study.
Users primarily turn to these tools for convenience rather than accuracy. Among respondents gathering information through artificial intelligence, only one in seven considers the technology more reliable than alternative sources, while six in ten report that it offers a faster and simpler method than manual searching.
Knowledge Gaps Among Heavy Users
When tested on true and false statements regarding artificial intelligence, Norwegian respondents answered three out of four questions correctly, matching the average across all nine countries included in the research. Participants demonstrated the highest familiarity with proper usage guidelines and the lowest awareness of system limitations.
Daily artificial intelligence users answered questions regarding system limitations incorrectly more frequently than non-users. More than one in three respondents reported frequently encountering content they initially believed was authentic before discovering it was generated by artificial intelligence. Among young adults, that figure exceeded half, and nine out of ten young respondents stated they were fooled at least once during the preceding week.
Skepticism Persists Toward Automated News
Despite heavy adoption of general artificial intelligence tools, public comfort with automated journalism remains low. Only 14% of respondents expressed comfort with news produced entirely by artificial intelligence, while two out of three preferred content created by human journalists. Only 7% use artificial intelligence tools to access news on a weekly basis, typically querying systems about topics they have already read about elsewhere.
Tellef S. Raabe and Ståle Grut noted that while previous warnings suggested artificial intelligence news summaries might erode willingness to pay for traditional journalism, current data shows no such decline. Four out of ten Norwegians maintain newspaper subscriptions, representing the highest rate in the world. Daily artificial intelligence users pay for news more frequently than non-users, and nearly half of those using the technology for information report no impact on their willingness to pay for journalism.
Demographic Divides in Paid Access
Paid artificial intelligence adoption largely mirrors existing economic and demographic divides. In households with a gross annual income exceeding 1.5 million kroner, nearly eight out of ten use artificial intelligence weekly, and nearly half maintain paid access. In households earning between 400,000 and 600,000 kroner, weekly usage falls below half, and paid access drops below one in five.
Autonomous artificial intelligence agents—systems capable of visiting websites to scrape news, sorting information, and personalizing content—remain rare. Only 14% of respondents used an agent for a real task during the previous week. Such agents represent a prerequisite for artificial intelligence to function as a news portal for the general public, a capability that is not yet widespread.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many young adults use artificial intelligence weekly in Norway?
Among young adults in Norway, eight out of ten use an artificial intelligence service weekly.
What percentage of Norwegians subscribe to newspapers?
Four out of ten Norwegians maintain a newspaper subscription, which marks the highest rate in the world.
Who funded the Norwegian portion of the Reuters Institute survey?
The Fritt Ord foundation financed the Norwegian segment of the research and contributed to the design of the survey questionnaire.
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