A new national study of 1,110 U.S. consumers conducted by iLawyer Marketing found that 53.5% now trust AI more than they did one year ago, and 47% agree they would trust an AI to give accurate, legally sound information. This shift is reshaping attorney research: Google usage fell from 86.7% to 71.9% in a single year, while ChatGPT surged from 28.1% to 41.9%. ChatGPT usage has grown more than 4.5x in three years, rising from 9% in 2023 to 41.9% in 2026. Half of all consumers (50.1%) would now use at least one AI answer engine to research attorneys, and 9.5% would use only AI sources. Consumers aged 45 to 60 lead AI adoption, with 57% using ChatGPT to research lawyers and 76% using AI to research law firms, higher than the 18 to 29 age bracket (35% and 48%). The study notes that in 2025, 94% of ChatGPT users said they would also use Google to validate AI answers, but in 2026, that overlap fell to just over 70%. “The story this year is not that consumers discovered AI; it’s that they stopped double-checking it,” said Mike Perez, Founder of iLawyer Marketing.