A new round of research from Barna Group, published as part of its ongoing State of the Church 2026 series with technology partner Gloo, has found that nearly one in three American adults now regard spiritual advice from artificial intelligence as trustworthy as guidance from a pastor. Among Gen Z and Millennial respondents, that figure rises to roughly two in five, according to Barna’s own summary of the findings on its research site (barna.com).
The same release reports that about four in ten practicing Christians say AI has already assisted them with prayer or Bible study, and that a similar share of pastors, roughly 41 percent, now use AI tools to help prepare sermons and lessons. Barna’s vice president of research, Daniel Copeland, is quoted in the release framing this as a chance for pastors to teach congregants how to use the technology wisely rather than treating it as a threat to be resisted (barna.com).
What the release does not linger on is a gap buried a few paragraphs in: roughly a third of practicing Christians say they want their pastor’s input on navigating AI, yet only 12 percent of pastors say they feel equipped to teach on the subject at all. That imbalance matters more than the adoption headline, because it points to a widening space where congregants are forming spiritual habits with software before any elder or bishop has weighed in.
Institutions losing ground to algorithms
Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture describe a version of the same shift in far starker terms. Their 2026 trends report names the dynamic directly as a contest between institutional authority and algorithmic authority, arguing that online personalities and, increasingly, AI tools are displacing influence once held almost exclusively by denominational structures and ordained clergy. The report points to Joseph Strickland, a Catholic bishop who was removed from his diocese, as someone who has nonetheless kept what the researchers call a digital following that answers to no bishop’s conference (dornsife.usc.edu).
The USC report cites the Rev. Jamal Bryant, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Imam Omar Suleiman as examples of religious leaders whose online audiences rival or exceed their congregational reach, a pattern the researchers say complicates any tidy story of straightforward institutional decline. Neither the USC report nor Barna’s release alleges that any of these leaders have sought to displace pastoral accountability; the concern raised in both cases is structural rather than personal. When a third of adults will accept a chatbot’s spiritual guidance as readily as a pastor’s, the accountability that normally comes with ordination has nowhere obvious to attach.
The USC researchers also cite survey work from the ministry organisation Exponential showing that even as church leaders embrace AI tools in growing numbers, AI-focused vendor booths went largely unvisited at that group’s own November 2025 conference (dornsife.usc.edu), a detail that sits awkwardly beside any vendor narrative of eager, uncomplicated adoption.
How the outlets framed it
Barna’s release places the AI-trust figures inside a broader section on faith and technology, alongside data showing most Americans engage with Christian media and consider it trustworthy, and the overall tone treats rising engagement as an opportunity for pastors to lean into rather than resist. The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, drawing on comparable survey terrain, names the contest outright as institutional authority versus algorithmic authority and treats that same appetite for AI-driven guidance as a force actively eroding denominational and pastoral influence rather than merely supplementing it. Both organisations are describing a similar shift in where Americans seek spiritual input, but Barna’s framing leans toward opportunity for church leaders to adapt, while USC’s framing leans toward a warning that institutions are losing their grip on authority they once held by default.
Companies marketing AI tools to churches have consistently pitched them as supplements to pastoral ministry rather than replacements for it, a position echoed in the USC report’s citation of ministry consultant Josh Johnson describing AI as a tool rather than a replacement (dornsife.usc.edu). That framing sits uneasily beside Barna’s own finding that AI-assisted spiritual formation is already happening largely without pastoral input, since only 12 percent of pastors report feeling prepared to guide people through it. If congregants are turning to AI for prayer and Bible study before any pastor has weighed in, the supplement-not-replacement pitch describes an aspiration rather than the reality Barna’s own numbers document.
