Want to build trust with AI? Make customers feel in control
Artificial intelligence is great for businesses, but customers don't care about that. Daniel van Vorsselen – CX Lead at TRA, explains why brand marketers need to consider how they express the benefits of AI.
Brand marketers love to talk about AI. It’s faster, smarter, cheaper, and its integration into business operations increases by the day. But for marketers there’s a hard truth that needs to be considered: while brands are busy celebrating innovation and efficiencies, customers are still waiting to see what’s in it for them.
New research from TRA reveals a concerning disconnect. In a survey of more than 2,000 people across Australia and New Zealand, consumers were far more likely to say AI helps companies make progress, not people. Worse still, across almost every AI-related question, uncertainty was the common denominator. Not rejection, but an overriding sense of “who is this really for?”
That’s a brand problem. And one marketers cannot afford to ignore.
Despite all the bells and whistles, customers are not convinced AI is beneficial as it doesn’t feel relevant to them. From a customer’s perspective, it’s a business decision: a tool to automate processes, reduce costs and remove humans from service roles. If AI is the future, most customers feel like they’ve been left out in the cold.
For brands this gap in perception is a growing threat to brand trust. Customers aren’t being won over by AI, they’re overwhelmed by it. Whether it’s chatbots that deflect rather than support, algorithmic pricing they can’t make sense of, or AI-generated content that clutters their feeds, the combined effect is a quiet loss of belief that brands have their best interests at heart.
I would argue that AI is not the problem. It’s the perception of irrelevance to the individual, that is.
So, here’s the mindset shift marketers need to consider: AI should be reframed as a force for empowerment, not just automation. Because while efficiency might matter inside the business, what matters to customers is what they can feel.
Customers don’t just want answers. They want to feel confident that they’ve made the right decision. They want to feel reassured that they haven’t missed something. They want to feel in control — especially in a world that’s increasingly complex and unpredictable.
And right now, most AI experiences simply don’t deliver that. They’re transactional, cold, efficient, but to the majority if customers, not emotionally satisfying. And without emotional payoff, no amount of optimisation will lead to brand loyalty.
Daniel van Vorsselen
To change this perception, marketers need to start re designing AI customer experiences. This means asking different questions in development such as: How it feels to the customer; does it make the customer feel more capable, more confident; and will they see and understand the value it’s delivering?
Even if AI is benefitting the business operations in the background, the benefit needs to be visible to the customer. Empowerment is often built in small, cumulative wins – little signals that make the customer feel like they are moving forward and doing it right. To achieve this, embed cues that say “you’re getting closer”, “nice work, you’re 80% there”. These small cues of empowerment are where trust is built. It’s not about AI doing everything for customers, but helping them do more with confidence.
At a time when trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, this matters more than ever. Customers will embrace AI, when they believe it’s on their side. When it supports, guides, and empowers them to move forward, not just move faster.
For marketers, the challenge is no longer to prove that AI works. It’s to prove that it works for people. That it was designed with emotion, not just efficiency. That it serves a purpose beyond performance metrics. That it is quite simply: human.
Because ultimately, brand trust isn’t built on technology. It’s built on how people feel when they engage with your brand.
So next time you launch an AI feature, don’t just ask “Does it save time?” Ask: “Does it build confidence? Does it empower someone to do something they couldn’t before?” That is the kind of progress your customer will remember. And that’s the kind of AI that earns brand trust and loyalty.
And at a time when uncertainty is the norm, trust is a powerful currency.
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