The survey found that 60 percent of U.S. consumers say “artificial intelligence” in brand messaging is off-putting

It’s easier to get citations with AI than to gain the trust of consumers, he says New report From WordPress VIP, the company owned by Automattic that offers an enterprise edition of the WordPress publishing platform. As brands race to show their connections in AI search results, consumers are becoming more skeptical about whether they can actually trust the answers they get.

According to the report, 60% of US consumers say brands that use “AI” in their messaging are off-putting, and 86% don’t fully trust AI and still want to explore authentic sources. Notably, 42% of consumers said that AI-generated answers without clear attribution are less trusted than airline fees, confusing privacy policies, and medical bills.

Nearly three out of four respondents said the internet seemed “less human” than it did 10 years ago.

Together, the findings paint a picture of a rapidly evolving digital landscape as brands try to adapt to a world beyond Google search and traditional SEO, while also balancing the need to appear human-authored or risk losing their audience. As companies invest more in making their brand visible to AI search engines, consumers place greater value on transparency and attribution.

“People are used to building other people’s websites,” Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, said in a statement shared alongside the new report. “You now have to build websites for the AI ​​agents who work on behalf of those people. If your content isn’t readable by the AI, you’re invisible to a growing percentage of how people search. You don’t exist. And if your content doesn’t look human and trustworthy to the small percentage of people who actually click through to the AI ​​answer engines, they won’t come back.”

The report is based on a survey of 2,000 people conducted in April, including 800 corporate decision-makers and marketing managers and 1,200 adults in the United States.

Although consumers are concerned about AI, the report also found that AI referrals to websites are on the rise.

60% of enterprise respondents said traffic from search engines and AI answering platforms has increased over the past year, and 74% of enterprise decision makers said AI discovery and attribution is a major or important priority.

WordPress VIP says the findings point to a future where brands will have to navigate AI vision and human trust simultaneously. The report found that 33% of consumers said clicking to see the original source was still their highest signal of trust, and 80% said information on the web should remain publicly available, rather than controlled by a small number of large organisations.

The latest result is consistent with Automattic’s broader push for an open web ecosystem, which is reflected in its support of the WordPress open source project and Investments in Open web protocolssuch as ActivityPub.