There’s a conversation happening in almost every professional circle right now, and it sounds a little different depending on who’s in the room.
A colleague of mine who built her own AI did the math on water usage after all the alarming headlines. Turns out, hers uses less than the scary stats circulating online, and she gives back to the environment, so the net effect is actually positive. She was quick to add: that’s not true of every AI program. Just hers. The nuance matters.
Another colleague and I were talking about what AI has done to identity, especially in the workplace. There’s a very real anxiety underneath all the productivity talk. When a tool can do your job, you start wondering what your job actually is. What you’re worth. It’s a harder conversation than most people are having out loud.
But the thread I keep coming back to, both as a consumer and as someone who runs a marketing company, is this: how the use of AI is quietly, measurably eroding trust. And the data is catching up to the feeling.
A study from Fractl and Search Engine Land surveyed over 1,000 consumers and 150 marketers earlier this year. The numbers are worth sitting with.
In 2025, 20% of consumers said heavy AI use would reduce their trust in a brand. By 2026, that number rose to 39%. Nearly double, in one year. Among Gen Z specifically, 54% say heavy AI use in a brand’s marketing would decrease their trust.
And here’s the one that made me put my phone down: across every content format, more than 80% of consumers want AI-generated content labeled. Video leads at 91%, followed by images at 90%, audio at 87%, and written content at 84%. Meanwhile, only 20% of brands always disclose.
That gap is not a small thing. That’s a trust problem waiting to happen, if it isn’t already.
eMarketer found that 49% of U.S. adults would use social platforms less if the amount of AI content in their feeds grew. Klaviyo’s research took it a step further: even among AI Enthusiasts, the most AI-friendly consumer segment, 39% say they’d trust a brand less for using AI-generated content. And 42% of that same group are neutral on it. There is no safe harbor in heavy AI use, even with your most forgiving audience.
And the IAB’s data from January adds one more layer worth knowing: disclosure, done honestly, can actually help. Some consumers said knowing an ad was created with AI would increase their likelihood to purchase. Transparency, it turns out, lands better than hoping no one notices.
I feel this as a consumer. My fake-AI-radar is on high alert. The scariest thing I’ve seen recently are brands using AI-generated video for testimonials. Now I genuinely don’t trust video testimonials in ads anymore. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Here’s what I’ve been doing on my end, not as a prescription, but because it comes up a lot in conversations with people I work with:
I write the first rough draft of almost everything. When I’m stuck, I’ll ask Claude to ask me questions to get my creative wheels turning. That conversation gets me going; the content still starts with me.
I used a Voice Architecture guide to build my own voice document so Claude can match my writing style. It took a couple of passes, but I’m a little obsessed with the result.
Everything AI touches, I review and edit. Everything.
None of this is about being anti-AI. I use it every day, and it saves me real time. But there’s a difference between using AI as a tool and outsourcing your voice to it. One makes you more efficient. The other makes you sound like everyone else.
The brands that treat quality as a strategic differentiator are the ones whose names will come up when consumers and AI systems go looking for answers. And for the people I work with, especially women-led businesses doing meaningful work with lean teams, showing up as yourself is not just a nice idea. It’s a competitive advantage.
Sources: Search Engine Land / Fractl | eMarketer | Klaviyo | IAB
Research for this post was assisted by Claude.
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