Sixty percent of US consumers say ‘AI’ in brand messaging is a turnoff, survey finds
Sixty percent of US consumers say ‘AI’ in brand messaging is a turnoff, survey finds
调查显示：60% 的美国消费者认为品牌营销中提及“AI”会令人反感
Getting cited by AI is easier than earning consumers’ trust, according to a new report from WordPress VIP, the Automattic-owned company that offers an enterprise version of the WordPress publishing platform. As brands race to have their links appear in AI search results, consumers have grown more skeptical about whether they can actually trust the answers they’re getting. 根据 WordPress VIP（Automattic 旗下提供企业版 WordPress 发布平台的公司）发布的一份最新报告，被 AI 引用比赢得消费者的信任要容易得多。随着各大品牌竞相让自己的链接出现在 AI 搜索结果中，消费者对于能否真正信任所获取的答案变得愈发怀疑。
Per the report, 60% of consumers in the U.S. say that brands that use “AI” in their messaging are a turnoff, and 86% don’t fully trust AI and still want to explore original sources. Notably, 42% of consumers said that AI-generated answers without clear attribution are trusted less than airline fees, confusing privacy policies, and medical bills. Nearly three in four respondents said the internet feels “less human” than it did 10 years ago. 报告显示，60% 的美国消费者表示，在品牌信息中使用“AI”会让他们感到反感；86% 的人并不完全信任 AI，仍希望查看原始来源。值得注意的是，42% 的消费者表示，对于没有明确来源标注的 AI 生成答案，其信任度甚至低于航空附加费、令人困惑的隐私政策和医疗账单。近四分之三的受访者认为，现在的互联网比 10 年前“更缺乏人情味”。
Together, the findings paint a picture of a rapidly evolving digital landscape where brands are trying 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 are placing greater value on transparency and attribution. 这些发现共同描绘了一个快速演变的数字图景：品牌正试图适应一个超越谷歌搜索和传统 SEO 的世界，同时必须在“保持人性化创作”与“失去受众风险”之间寻求平衡。随着企业投入更多资源以提升品牌在 AI 搜索引擎中的可见度，消费者正愈发看重透明度和来源标注。
“People used to build websites for other people,” said Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, in a statement shared alongside the new report. “Now you have to build websites for AI agents acting on behalf of those people. If your site’s content isn’t legible to AI, you are invisible to a growing share of how people search. You don’t exist. And if your content doesn’t feel human and trustworthy for the tiny percentage of people who actually click past the AI answer engines, they won’t come back a second time.” “过去，人们为他人构建网站，”WordPress VIP 首席技术官 Brian Alvey 在随报告发布的一份声明中表示，“现在，你必须为代表这些人的 AI 代理构建网站。如果你的网站内容无法被 AI 读取，那么在日益增长的搜索方式中，你就是隐形的，你等于不存在。而如果你的内容对于那些真正点击进入网站的少数用户来说，感觉不到人性化和可信度，他们就不会再来第二次了。”
The report is based on a survey of 2,000 respondents conducted in April, comprising 800 enterprise decision-makers and CMOs and 1,200 U.S. adults. Despite consumers’ wariness about AI, the report also found that AI referrals to sites were growing. Sixty percent of enterprise respondents said that traffic from AI search engines and answer platforms increased over the past year, and 74% of enterprise decision-makers said AI discoverability and attribution are a main or significant priority. 该报告基于 4 月份进行的 2,000 名受访者调查，其中包括 800 名企业决策者和首席营销官（CMO），以及 1,200 名美国成年人。尽管消费者对 AI 持谨慎态度，但报告也发现，来自 AI 的网站引流正在增长。60% 的企业受访者表示，过去一年来自 AI 搜索引擎和问答平台的流量有所增加；74% 的企业决策者表示，AI 可发现性和来源标注是目前的主要或重要优先事项。
WordPress VIP says the findings point to a future where brands will have to navigate both AI visibility and human trust simultaneously. The report found that 33% of consumers said clicking through to see an original source is still their top trust signal, and 80% said information on the web should remain openly accessible, rather than controlled by a small number of large organizations. The last finding aligns with Automattic’s broader push for an open web ecosystem, reflected in its backing of the open source WordPress project and investments in open web protocols, like ActivityPub. WordPress VIP 表示，这些发现指向了一个未来：品牌必须同时兼顾 AI 可见度和人类信任。报告发现，33% 的消费者表示，点击查看原始来源仍然是他们最重要的信任信号；80% 的人认为网络信息应保持开放获取，而不是被少数大型机构所控制。最后这一发现与 Automattic 对开放网络生态系统的广泛推动相一致，这体现在其对开源 WordPress 项目的支持以及对 ActivityPub 等开放网络协议的投资上。