Half of consumers actually prefer brands that avoid AI
Gartner surveyed 1,539 Americans and found 50% would rather buy from brands that don't use AI in ads and content. Here's what it means for marketers.
Half of all U.S. consumers would rather give their money to brands that don't use AI in their advertising, marketing, or customer-facing content. That's the headline finding from a new Gartner marketing survey of 1,539 Americans — and it's a wake-up call for every company rushing to slap AI on everything.
The message is clear: people use AI themselves, but they don't want brands using it on them.
The trust crisis behind the numbers
The survey, conducted in October 2025 and published as part of Gartner's "What CMOs Must Know About Consumers in 2026" report, paints a picture of deepening skepticism:
50% of consumers prefer brands that avoid AI in ads, marketing, and content
68% regularly wonder whether the content they see online is even real
61% frequently question whether the information they use for daily decisions is reliable
78% say labeling AI-generated content is "very important" or the single most important factor for trust
Only 27% of consumers still rely on gut instinct to judge whether something is real — down sharply as people shift toward actively checking sources and verifying claims. This isn't casual concern. It's a behavioral change.
Why people use AI but don't trust brands that use it
There's a paradox here. Hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools every week. So why would they punish brands for doing the same?
The difference comes down to control. When you use AI yourself, you choose what to ask, how to use the answer, and when to ignore it. When a brand uses AI on you — writing the ad you see, generating the product description you read, or automating the customer service chat you're stuck in — you've lost that control.
Emily Weiss, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner's Marketing practice, put it bluntly: marketers need to "treat GenAI as a trust decision as much as a technology decision." She added: "The brands that win will be the ones that use AI in ways customers can immediately recognize as helpful, while being transparent about when AI is used, what it's doing, and giving customers a clear choice to opt out."
If you run marketing or a brand — read this
Gartner's recommendations boil down to four moves:
1. Make AI optional. Don't force AI-generated experiences on customers. Give them the human option.
2. Label everything. If AI wrote it, designed it, or recommended it — say so. 78% of consumers call this the most important trust factor.
3. Start with obvious value. Use AI where customers can immediately see the benefit — like faster shipping estimates or personalized size recommendations — not where it replaces human creativity.
4. Let people verify. Back up AI-driven claims with proof points. Link to sources. Show your work.
The bigger picture: AI backlash is building across industries
This Gartner data doesn't exist in a vacuum. In the past month alone, Wikipedia banned AI-written articles by a 44-to-2 vote. 43% of ChatGPT users said they'd quit over privacy concerns. And eight organizations are racing to create "AI-free" certification labels for human-made work.
The pattern is consistent: consumers embrace AI as a personal tool, but increasingly reject it when institutions use it to replace genuine human work. For brands, the takeaway isn't "don't use AI" — it's "don't use AI where it feels like you're cutting corners."
As Gartner's data shows, transparency isn't just nice to have. For half your customers, it's the difference between staying and leaving.
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