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Most people are willing to trust AI—as long as it stays in its own lane. That’s the takeaway from Mission North’s “The New Rules of Trust,” a report that looks at how the public evaluates corporate reputation and at what brands need to do to maintain credibility and relevance.
When AI is used for everyday business functions, a majority of survey respondents did not seem to have a problem with it. More than half of them (55 percent) said they were comfortable with using AI to generate marketing copy, with a similar number ready to accept its use for personalizing products or recommendations (55 percent), answering customer service questions (54 percent) and generating code for new digital products (53 percent).
However, some hesitation comes into play when it comes to handing over the reins to AI for more complex decisions. Respondents were not so ready to let AI deal with such functions as cybersecurity (52 percent not comfortable), generating legal or policy documents (55 percent not comfortable) or making HR decisions (a thumbs-down from 58 percent).
There was also a strong desire for disclosure about the use of AI. Almost three-quarters of survey respondents (73 percent) said that undisclosed AI executive messaging would reduce their trust. “The issue isn’t whether leaders use AI,” said Mission North co-CEO Tyler Perry. “It’s whether they remain accountable for what’s said in their name.”
The study found a big difference between the general population and “knowledge workers” in their trust levels regarding not just AI, but social media and a wide variety of other social institutions. While just 28 percent of the general population expressed trust in AI startups, that number rises to 58 percent for knowledge workers. The trust gap was equally wide for big tech (34 percent vs. 58 percent), social media (28 percent vs. 50 percent) and the news media (36 percent vs. 56 percent).
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A possible reason for this gap is that a higher proportion of the general population comes from outside the tech bubble, making them more likely “to evaluate organizations based on visible outcome, perceived harm and cultural signals.”
To help leaders communicate effectively with both general and more tech-savvy audiences, the study offers a few pointers. Perhaps the top one of these is to place less emphasis on the need for frequent media appearances. For knowledge workers, leadership commitment to employees (64 percent) outweighs a high media profile (44 percent) when it comes to trust. For the population as a whole, only 24 percent say frequent media appearances move the needle on trust, while 44 percent say a commitment to diversity and employee experience would raise trust levels.
Other important strategies are that a leader be seen as protecting people from harm, taking responsibility when things go wrong and, perhaps most importantly, communicating with clarity and purpose.
Sometimes, the best strategy may simply be to step back. Overall, 59 percent say “it’s better for a company to say nothing at all” compared to the 29 percent who would rather that leaders enter the conversation quickly, even it they risk saying the wrong thing.
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