Purpose. The increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in news production raises important questions about audience acceptance. This research explores group differences in comfort levels toward news generated by AI and news produced with AI assistance, focusing on the effect of the main news sources. It is hypothesized that using social media as a main gateway for news may influence comfort with AI-generated news due to the users’ familiarity with algorithm personalization. Methodology. A quantitative analysis was conducted on a representative sample of 2012 Portuguese internet users. Nonparametric tests were applied for group comparisons, and a composite AI Comfort Index was developed to enable parametric testing of interaction effects between awareness of AI and main source of news. Results and Conclusions. The analysis identifies higher comfort levels when AI is presented as a...