Science Barometer 2026: Gladly asked, but not very familiar

When things go wrong, “Doctor AI” is consulted more and more often. According to the latest science barometer, 28 percent of Germans are already using artificial intelligence (AI) via the Internet to ask medical questions. Among younger people, 4 out of 10 respondents do so.

Human specialists, doctors and pharmacists, are still the number one source of information on illnesses and health prevention at 73 percent. But the survey, which is carried out annually by the communication platform of the German research organizations “Wissenschaft im Dialog”, also revealed a remarkable gap in understanding.

While 63 percent of respondents cited clearly answering their health questions as the main reason for using AI, only 45 percent understood what medical professionals explained to them. Another advantage of AI is its accessibility, which 67 percent of people value, in contrast to doctor's offices and hospitals, which are only easily accessible to 30 percent.

However, the situation is completely different when it comes to trust: Is the information from the AI ​​viewed as accurate and valid and can therefore be followed? Only 6 percent of Germans are of this opinion, while this trust level for doctors or other medical professionals is 41 percent. State institutions such as the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin even come to 43 percent.

“Generative AI has long since become part of everyday life when it comes to health problems,” says Benedikt Fecher, managing director of “Wissenschaft im Dialog”, assessing the result. For him, however, the crucial question is whether citizens can realistically assess which sources they can trust. “This creates a double task for science communication,” says Fecher, who also sees it as a challenge for his platform. “Namely, to ensure the trustworthiness of scientific information and at the same time to develop new, reliable communication formats with AI.”

In addition to the unique annual theme of “health information”, the science barometer, which has been surveying the general attitudes of the German population towards science and research since 2014, has not registered any serious changes.

Half of those surveyed continue to show great interest in scientific topics and 56 percent express a high level of trust in research. “According to our data, the assumption that people are losing trust in science is not true,” says Miriam Nagels, program manager at “Wissenschaft im Dialog”. This basic trust has been stable in Germany for years.

However, upon closer inspection, differences become apparent. A clear majority (59 percent) of people with a high level of education say that they personally benefit from science, but only 25 percent of respondents with a low level of education see it this way.