Scribd, the knowledge platform with 350M+ pieces of content uploaded by real people, today released findings of a new report, The 2026 Scribd Understanding Index [full report here]. A survey of 1,500 U.S. respondents revealed that trust is the deciding factor in how people build understanding, and human expertise is the way they get it.

• Four in 10 (37%) say the hardest part of any research session is knowing which sources to trust, twice the rate of the next biggest challenge.
• Three-quarters (76%) say author expertise is highly important, 72% rate citations equally so.

New technology raises the stakes on trust

AI adoption has arrived: nearly two thirds of respondents (62%) use AI tools at least weekly, and AI chatbots are the first stop when trying to learn something for 27% of people. A sign of how embedded AI has become, usage has created a new workflow around verification:

• Over two-thirds (68%) of people spend between one and six hours every week verifying AI/search engine outputs, including over one-fifth (22%) spending 4-6 hours.
• Half (47%) say validation is so critical they always make time for it, even when they're busy.

When people verify, they turn to experts

Locating separate, independent sources (30%) is the most common method for verifying information. Subject matter experts with first-hand experience and human-authored expert documents score almost four times higher on trust than AI-generated summaries.

The verification matters: over half (55%) have caught something from AI that turned out to be inaccurate once they double-checked it. But habits are still forming: 59% have used unverified AI information to support a professional decision in the past month.

“AI hasn't replaced the need for primary sources. It's accelerated it. Sixty percent of people say primary documents are crucial to their research journey, because when the work matters, people want a real, accountable human behind what they're reading. We've spent nearly two decades collecting that kind of human knowledge. That's driven trust since we told stories around a campfire, and it's only more true now,” said Mike Lewis, Head of Scribd.com.

Students apply the most scrutiny 

Contrary to assumptions about younger people cutting corners, the data shows that students are being deliberate about their AI use. Students trust AI at roughly half the rate of the general population (22% vs. 42%) and experience inaccuracies 3x more often. Conditioned to fact check and cite sources, 91% say verification is important, and 79% validate information always or frequently, versus 67% of the total population.

The full 2026 Scribd Understanding Index explores how people find, build, and trust knowledge in the AI era, with segment breakdowns for students, educators, and business professionals. Available at https://www.scribd.com/report/understanding-index.

Methodology

The 2026 Scribd Understanding Index surveyed 1,500 U.S. respondents who read or downloaded a document online in the past six months, augmented with 200 students and 200 educators. Data collected April – May 2026.