For years, marketers have treated trust as something brands earn through reputation. AI is changing that; trust is now being judged by interaction, with consumers using every digital experience as evidence of whether a brand is acting responsibly.
The shift isn't that consumers distrust AI. It's that they've become remarkably good at detecting when brands use it poorly. When experiences feel automated without being accountable, personalized without being transparent, or efficient at the expense of human judgment, consumers notice and change their behavior accordingly. The Trust Economy describes a market where consumers reward brands that use AI transparently, responsibly and with human accountability, and disengage from those that do not. In this environment, digital authenticity becomes an operational capability that determines whether AI strengthens or weakens customer relationships.
Based on responses from more than 4,000 consumers across four global markets, this analysis examines where that capability is breaking down and where brands have the greatest opportunity to strengthen it. The findings point to a clear conclusion: the brands that win with AI won't necessarily be those that automate the most, but those that make automation feel the most trustworthy.
Sitecore’s Digital Authenticity Index surveyed 4,047 consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and United Arab Emirates to understand how AI is changing consumer expectations of digital authenticity and brand trust.
While there are surprises across the study, the commercial lens brings focus onto how AI can influence consumers in either direction of the Trust Economy equation.
Top takeaways
58%
of consumers say they have disengaged with a brand because their experience felt inauthentic.
50%
of consumers expect AI content to reduce digital authenticity in the future.
89%
of consumers say brands need to do more to improve the authenticity of their digital experiences.
#1
Human accountability is a top priority. Consumers identify it as the No. 1 trust killer when done wrong and the No. 1 trust builder when done right.
51%
of consumers say the human touch in digital brand experiences has worsened over the past two years.
How is AI affecting consumer trust?
Consumers aren't turning away from AI simply because it's AI. Their response depends on how brands use it and how the resulting experience feels.
While today’s consumers have more widely accepted AI into their daily interactions with brands, they have also evolved beyond curiosity and preference to behavior and reaction. On one hand, a high majority with 80% of participants agree that when AI is used responsibly, it improves accuracy, relevance, and credibility. On the other hand, more than half at 60% say AI-generated brand marketing content is easy to spot, and 58% have reduced engagement, switched away from brands, or no longer used brands because the digital experience felt inauthentic. This is a clear signal that consumers are not driven away by AI itself. Authentic AI is the new needle that can easily and quickly tip consumer trust either in a brand’s favor or far from it.
The 34.5-point responsibility gap
The largest gap between what consumers expect from digital experiences and what they believe brands deliver is in responsibility. Globally, the Digital Authenticity Index finds a 34.5 percentage point gap between the importance consumers place on responsible digital experiences and how they rate brand performance.
Consumers reported that they’d like to see improvement in brand responsibility, transparency, and human accountability. The Digital Authenticity Index measures this by calculating an area’s importance to the consumers vs. their performance ratings. Areas measured fit into three main categories: Credibility, Relevance to the users, and whether brands are acting responsibly (Responsibility).
Overall, the Responsibility area has the most significant misalignment with a 34.5 percentage point gap globally, more than twice the Credibility (14.9 percentage points) and Relevance (15.2 percentage points) gap. This may not seem like a lot on the surface, but drilling down into the responses throughout this analysis reveals more of the big picture. Overall sentiment, 50% of consumers expect AI and AI-generated content to reduce digital authenticity in the future—rather than improve it.
Digital authenticity is becoming the new baseline for trust
Consumers increasingly expect brands to treat digital authenticity as a business priority: 89% of people say brands need to do more to improve their digital authenticity. What is striking about this finding is how consistent it is across every generation surveyed, each landing between 88% to 89%, and how high it sits across every market surveyed, from 86% in the UK to 91% in the UAE. The mandate is a near-unanimous expectation from consumers.
Furthermore, 86% of participants say digital authenticity should be a brand’s top or high-priority future investment. Consider it no longer a question of whether to invest in authentic practices, but more a question of when to invest before your customers start taking their business elsewhere. As a prime example, when asked about brands’ undisclosed use of generative AI content, 65% say it decreases their trust. Consumers are already deciding where they set their standards. Only brands that meet those standards can turn AI from a trust liability into a trust asset.
What makes consumers trust AI-powered experiences?
Human accountability is the strongest trust signal in AI-powered experiences. When consumers were asked what destroys trust, the No. 1 answer was having no clear way to reach a human when needed (46%). When asked what builds trust, the No. 1 answer was easy access to human support (45%).
The first sure-fire way to improve digital authenticity is to get human accountability right. It is a clear priority for consumers, and it can greatly impact whether they choose to trust a brand.
The human touch is becoming more valuable as AI grows
The Digital Authenticity Index reveals another closely related theme: the loss of human touch in brand experiences is ranked to be under the greatest threat with 50% of consumers expecting the human touch to decline as AI grows. It is the highest concern across all four dimensions of digital communication tracked in this study, and it is a concern that intensifies with age as 68% of Boomers agree, compared to a much lower 37% of Gen Z.
What makes these numbers worth noting? These are reported after 51% of participants say that human touch in digital experience has already worsened over the past two years. For brands, especially with older customer bases, protecting the human touch in digital experiences is not a legacy consideration; it is a retention imperative.
AI optimism looks very different across markets
Consumer attitudes toward AI and digital authenticity vary dramatically by market, with UAE consumers reporting both greater optimism and stronger brand performance.
Western markets are broadly skeptical about AI's impact on digital authenticity while the UAE tells a different story. In the UK, 63.7% of in-region consumers expect AI will reduce digital authenticity in the future, which tracks with the US at 57% and Australia at 58%. This is significantly higher than 20.5% of consumers in the UAE. It’s safe to say more UAE consumers expect AI to improve digital authenticity in the future.
When homing in on the UAE’s Responsibility gap results to understand the whole picture, it further reveals consumers in the UAE are not just more positive in attitude. Their optimism is backed by better performance ratings. UAE consumers report their importance vs. performance gap at only 13.1 percentage points. This is much narrower compared to the UK with consumers reporting their importance vs. performance gap at 44.7 percentage points, the US at 40.4 percentage points, and Australia at 40.1 percentage points. This is a preview of what consumer sentiment looks like when AI governance and digital trust are handled well.
CMO action plan
How can brands build consumer trust as they adopt AI? The research points to five priorities: use AI responsibly, improve existing experiences before adding more automation, preserve access to human support, measure trust alongside traditional performance metrics and learn from markets where brands are already closing the expectation gap.
Don't mistake AI adoption for customer confidence
Rolling out more AI doesn't automatically make the customer experience better. Consumers are telling us they care less about whether brands use AI and more about whether they use it responsibly. Scale trust as deliberately as you scale technology.
Fix what's already in market before launching what's next
The biggest gap isn't AI capability. It's how consumers rate brands on responsibility. Before investing in the next AI initiative, improve the experiences customers are already having today.
Never leave customers talking to a wall
The strongest message in this research is surprisingly simple. Consumers want to know a person is there when they need one. AI should make getting help easier, not make people work harder to find it.
If you don't measure trust, you'll miss when it's gone
Marketing teams measure clicks, conversions, and engagement because they influence growth. Trust deserves the same attention. As AI becomes a bigger part of the customer experience, confidence in how it's used should become a measure of success too.
Learn from the markets getting it right
Consumers in the UAE report a much smaller gap between what they expect and what brands deliver. That's a reminder that better outcomes are possible when responsible AI is built into the customer experience from the start.