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Americans say it's increasingly difficult to know what is true. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Americans are less trusting of information from the government and are increasingly finding it difficult to figure out whether information they come across is true, according to a new survey.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that a majority of Americans now do not trust information that is coming out of government agencies. The poll was conducted from July 29 to August 10 and surveyed 1,036 people. It has a margin of error of 4.1 percent.

"The survey finds that many Americans struggle to determine what information is true, while confidence in traditional sources like the government is declining," reads a passage of the poll. "This uncertainty extends to information about the 2026 midterm elections, where Americans face challenges evaluating what they see and hear."

The poll also found declining trust by Americans in information being provided by the government on inflation, health care, the environment, unemployment, abortion, and elections and politics. In fact, the number of people who put a great deal or quite a bit of trust in the government on those topics fell below 20 percent across the board. Also, all of the numbers had fallen since 2024.

The lack of trust in information extends beyond the government. According to the poll, 37 percent of people say it's hard to know whether something is true or not. When it comes to politics, 30 percent of people say it's hard to find truthful information about candidates, and 43 percent say it's hard to know whether what a candidate says is true.

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AI is not helping people feel more confident about the information they come across and actually appears to be making people much more uncertain about what is true. Only 9 percent of residents said they were extremely or very confident in AI information sources, while 49 percent were not very or not at all confident in the information.

"At a time when Americans already express uncertainty about the information they encounter, the growing role of AI introduces another source of concern. Americans approach AI's growing role in how they get information with more concern than excitement," the survey concluded.