Survey: 60% of U.S. consumers dislike “AI” in brand messaging

WordPress VIP says new survey findings point to a messaging problem for brands trying to benefit from AI-driven discovery: explicitly labeling something as “AI” can reduce trust with a large share of consumers.

The company outlined the results in its official announcement, based on a survey of 2,000 respondents conducted in April, including 800 enterprise decision-makers and CMOs and 1,200 U.S. adults.

Table of contents

Jump to each section:

• What the survey results say about AI trust and attribution
• Why brands are being pulled between AI visibility and human credibility
• What this means for marketers

What the survey results say about AI trust and attribution

The headline numbers are stark:

• 60% of U.S. consumers said brands that use “AI” in their messaging are a turnoff.
• 86% said they don’t fully trust AI and still want to explore original sources.
• 42% said 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.

The survey also connects “trust” to behavior. WordPress VIP says 33% of consumers view clicking through to the original source as their top trust signal, which implies that attribution is not a nice-to-have, but a core part of credibility.

There is also a governance theme: 80% said information on the web should remain openly accessible, rather than controlled by a small number of large organizations. That preference matters because it frames how consumers may react to opaque AI answer experiences.

Why brands are being pulled between AI visibility and human credibility

WordPress VIP’s framing is that brands are now building for two audiences at once: AI systems that summarize and route attention, and humans who may only arrive after an AI layer has already pre-interpreted the content.

That tension shows up in enterprise behavior in the same study:

• 60% of enterprise respondents said traffic from AI search engines and answer platforms increased over the past year.
• 74% of enterprise decision-makers said AI discoverability and attribution are a main or significant priority.

In other words, teams are feeling pressure to be “legible” to AI systems because the discovery layer is shifting, while consumers are simultaneously penalizing content that feels automated, generic, or insufficiently attributed.

A useful way to interpret the “AI is a turnoff” finding is not that consumers reject AI everywhere, but that they may reject AI as a positioning claim when it signals lower effort, weaker accountability, or unclear sourcing. The trust penalty is amplified when attribution is missing, because it becomes hard for audiences to verify what they are reading.

What this means for marketers

This survey points to a branding and communications challenge that sits alongside the SEO-to-AI transition: being optimized for AI discovery is not the same as sounding trustworthy to people.

1. Treat attribution as part of brand voice, not a compliance detail.
   The finding that consumers trust AI-generated answers less when attribution is unclear suggests marketers should make sourcing and provenance visible, especially for informational content.
2. Be careful with “AI” as a front-of-house message.
   If 60% of consumers see “AI” in brand messaging as a turnoff, then leading with “AI-powered” language can create friction before prospects even evaluate the product or claim.
3. Design content for “AI legibility” without sacrificing human tone.
   WordPress VIP’s CTO Brian Alvey argues that brands risk invisibility if AI systems cannot parse their sites, but the same content still needs to feel human for the smaller set of people who click through.
4. Assume audiences will verify, and make that easy.
   With 86% saying they don’t fully trust AI and still want original sources, marketers can reduce drop-off by making primary references easy to find and understand.
5. Plan for a trust gap between reach and persuasion.
   The enterprise-side signal that AI referrals are growing can increase top-of-funnel visibility, but the consumer-side skepticism means persuasion may get harder unless the experience reinforces credibility quickly.

If AI answer engines keep becoming a larger gateway to brand content, marketers will have to manage a dual optimization problem: structured content that machines can understand, and storytelling that signals responsibility and craft to humans.

The more mediated discovery becomes, the more brand trust will be earned through transparency and traceability, not just distribution. In practice, that can shift teams away from “sounding futuristic” and toward “sounding accountable.”