The trust gap
AI use is outrunning confidence in it. What should business leaders do about that?
Contents
Would you let AI buy something for you without asking first?
Choose an answer. We'll come back to it at the end.
How far has AI already reached into daily life?
of people surveyed used AI in the past six months.
Familiarity, not trust, is driving adoption. Don't read high usage as permission.
How far will people let AI go?
Further than you might think. 16% have already used AI that acts without them, in just six months.
Where would you stop?
Select the furthest task you'd hand to AI. Ordered from lower to higher stakes, by our own reading.
Nothing handed over yet.
What people let AI do for them
Share of respondents, %. Switch between the two survey questions.
Customers will delegate small tasks today. Higher-stakes delegation has to be earned.
Where is adoption moving fastest?
In eight Pioneer markets, where AI is used more broadly, more often and more deeply in daily life.
The 23 surveyed markets, by stage of AI adoption
Hover or tap a market. Hong Kong SAR and Singapore are shown as dots.
Pioneers are ahead on both measures
Share of respondents, %
Pioneer markets show what customers elsewhere will soon expect. Watch them for the early signal.
If people use AI this much, do they trust it?
Not yet. Use is racing ahead, and confidence is lagging behind.
Real or AI? Which of these reviews reads like AI wrote it?
73 in every 100 people
Each dot is 1% of respondents
fear they won't be able to tell what's real and what's AI-generated.
Every AI interaction is now also a trust test. Plan for the moment it goes wrong.
What should leaders do about it?
Treat trust as a design problem. The report points to good everyday experiences, reliable data, clear guardrails and accountability.
001Start where trust already exists
Introduce AI agents in frequent, low-stakes moments, like discounts and simple service fixes, where people already welcome help. Let good experiences build the case for more.
002Keep a human in the loop as stakes rise
The higher the stakes, the more people want a person to check, approve or step in. Make that person easy to reach.
003Show your work
Label what AI did, explain why, and let people undo it. Visible, reversible actions are what turn a Maybe into a Yes.
You skipped the question at the start. Scroll back up and answer it, and this line will change.