Church and artificial intelligence: 60 percent of pastors use AI

epd | Around 62 percent of pastors in Germany work with artificial intelligence (AI). This was the result of a detailed evaluation of the cross-denominational study “Digitalization in the Church Area” (DiRK, 2026). As the head of the study, Holger Sievert (Cologne), told the Evangelical Press Service (epd), 20 percent said they used AI frequently and 42.6 percent rarely used it. So far there have been no figures for Germany.

According to the DiRK study, one in five pastors has never had anything to do with AI. 15.3 percent of those surveyed said they had already experimented or tried things out. Eight percent of pastors said they couldn't imagine working with ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral or another AI system.

Those who are supported by AI named text creation as the most important field (62.3 percent). According to the study, research came in second place (60.9 percent), followed by the production of translations (35.2 percent). Pastors also used AI tools to query facts, summarize texts, generate images or as idea guides.

How and to what extent AI is used to prepare sermons is not exactly clear from the current data. “But we know from the open answers that sermon creation was an important area of ​​text creation,” explained the professor at Macromedia University. In-depth evaluations of use by pastors should follow in 2027.

A total of 7,178 Protestants and Catholics were surveyed in the 2026 DiRK study, a good half of whom were employed full-time in the church. 505 pastors answered the questions about generative AI. The first results of the study by insurers in the church area (vrk) were published in April.