Three in Four Nordic Youths Use AI, but Concerns Over Speed and Reliability Persist
A new Nordic media literacy survey has found that nearly half the region’s population has used AI services in the past three months, with usage concentrated heavily among younger age groups who deploy the technology primarily for information searches and assignment writing.
Text: Martti Asikainen 22.1.2026 | Photo: Adobe Stock Photos
The Nordic Media Literacy Survey, conducted by media authorities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, gathered responses from over 12,000 participants to assess how citizens across the region interact with both traditional and digital media, including artificial intelligence tools.
The findings reveal significant generational divides in AI adoption. Among 13 to 15-year-olds, approximately three-quarters have used AI services recently, compared with fewer than one in five among the oldest cohort surveyed. Young adults still in education show particularly high usage for assignment writing and programming tasks, whilst older adults are more likely to cite testing the technology as their primary motivation.
When respondents were asked what they had most recently used AI for, the majority cited information searches. The technology has gained traction in academic contexts, with younger users turning to AI tools to support written work and coding projects.
Usage patterns show some variation between Nordic countries. In Finland and Iceland, people are somewhat more inclined to experiment with AI to understand how it functions, whilst in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, the technology sees heavier deployment for assignment support.
Widespread Unease About Development Speed
Despite adoption rates, the survey uncovered substantial anxiety across all age groups about AI’s trajectory and societal impact. Respondents expressed concern that AI development is proceeding too rapidly for consequences to be properly anticipated or managed.
A recurring theme in the responses was the technology’s effect on information integrity. Many participants argued that AI-generated content is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine information from fabrications, undermining trust in media more broadly.
Trust in AI services remains limited across the region. Few respondents expressed confidence that AI delivers accurate and reliable information or contributes positively to democratic processes. Scepticism runs particularly high in Sweden, Finland, and Iceland.
Anders Adlercreutz, Finland’s Minister of Education and for Nordic Cooperation, framed media literacy as essential infrastructure for democratic resilience. “By educating both children and adults to be source critical and by giving them tools to detect attempts at influence and fake news, we strengthen our resilience and our democracy,” he said in a statement accompanying the report’s release.
Generational Split on AI's Democratic Potential
Younger adults demonstrate marginally more optimism about AI’s potential benefits, showing greater willingness to agree that the technology can streamline journalistic work, simplify information searches, and support democratic engagement.
Older respondents, by contrast, lean towards scepticism or report having no settled view on these questions. The generational divergence suggests that attitudes towards AI may be shaped as much by familiarity and exposure as by the technology’s inherent characteristics.
In Norway, Denmark, and Finland, AI is more widely recognised as a useful efficiency tool compared with Sweden and Iceland, though concern about unmanageable development speed remains consistent across all five countries.
The survey marks the first systematic assessment of media literacy across the Nordic region, providing baseline data on how populations engage with information sources in an increasingly digital and algorithmically mediated environment. The participating media authorities intend the findings to inform policy development around digital literacy and public information resilience.
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