A new report from WordPress VIP—the enterprise arm of Automattic—reveals a striking disconnect: getting cited by AI is easier than earning consumer trust. As brands race to secure their links in AI-generated search results, users are growing increasingly skeptical about the reliability of those answers. The survey, which polled 2,000 respondents in April—including 800 enterprise decision-makers and CMOs, plus 1,200 U.S. adults—found that 60% of consumers find brands using "AI" in their messaging off-putting, and 86% don't fully trust AI, preferring 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-quarters of respondents feel the internet has become "less human" than it was a decade ago.

Together, these findings paint a picture of a rapidly shifting digital landscape. Brands are scrambling to adapt beyond Google Search and traditional SEO, while also striving to appear human-authored or risk losing their audience. As companies invest more in making their content visible to AI search engines, consumers are placing a premium on transparency and proper attribution. "People used to build websites for other people," said Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, in a statement. "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."

Despite consumer wariness, the report also found that AI referrals to websites are on the rise. Sixty percent of enterprise respondents reported an increase in traffic from AI search engines and answer platforms over the past year, and 74% said AI discoverability and attribution are a major or significant priority. WordPress VIP suggests these results point to a future where brands must navigate both AI visibility and human trust simultaneously. The survey revealed that 33% of consumers still consider clicking through to an original source as their top trust signal, while 80% believe information on the web should remain openly accessible rather than controlled by a handful of large organizations. This final finding aligns with Automattic's broader push for an open web ecosystem, reflected in its support for the open-source WordPress project and investments in open web protocols like ActivityPub.