Keeping Trust Alive in the Age of AI Content
Five essential tips for using AI in your content without losing trust in your brand voice.
Do your audiences really trust the content you’re publishing? Welcome to the third article in our Content Trust series by our Senior Content Copywriter, Alastair Bevan.
Want a sense of where B2B content is heading right now? Look at recruitment trends.
One of the fastest-growing roles in tech isn’t engineering, or data science. It’s writing for AI – shaping prompts, refining outputs, and turning raw machine-generated content into publishable outputs.
That tells us two things. Firstly, AI-generated content is now everywhere. (No surprise, when it’s lightning quick at writing, great for research, and above all, fantastically cost-effective). Secondly, it still needs human input to be any good.
Welcome to the age of ‘AI slop’
There’s even a name for what happens when that second bit gets glossed over.
In 2025, ‘AI slop’ was made Word of the Year by both Merriam-Webster and the American Dialect Society. That’s a reflection of just how quickly low-quality, machine-produced content has flooded the web.
We’ve all seen it. Text that looks polished at a glance, but says very little. Articles that feel weirdly generic. Social posts that seem to make sense, but have all the personality of a petrol station meal deal.
And once you notice that flavourlessness, it’s hard to get past it.
The problem isn’t just quality – it’s perception
AI-generated content isn’t inherently wrong or inaccurate. But audiences are becoming increasingly sensitive to anything that feels mass-produced.
Pew Research found that 72% of people globally see false or misleading information online as a major threat. Perception matters as much as reality.
If a content asset feels generic or hyper-optimised, you lose instantly. And that’s the real stumbling block.
AI has raised the bar, not lowered it
Those who commission content (rather than assembling it) increasingly believe that AI makes the job easier. In reality, it makes good content significantly harder.
When anyone can produce an article in seconds, surface-level quality loses its premium. Anybody can sound polished, structure an article, hit vaguely the right tone.
But that’s not standout content. What matters in the AI age is original thinking, real expertise, a distinct point of view.
All of which, you won’t be shocked to hear, come from the human layer.
The volume trap
AI makes it dangerously easy to optimise for output. More blogs, more posts, more videos. Faster turnaround.
But more output doesn’t mean more impact. In fact, the opposite is often true.
When volume increases without a corresponding uplift in quality, you lose engagement. And attention. And trust.
Worse than that: you become part of the noise you’re trying to cut through.
What still builds trust hasn’t changed
Despite everything AI has made possible, the fundamentals are remarkably stable.
Trust still comes from:
- Saying something worth hearing
- Demonstrating genuine understanding
- Respecting your reader’s time
Used well, AI accelerates thinking. Used sloppily, it exposes a lack of it.
Five ways to use AI without losing trust
In B2B tech, this is where many brands are tripping up – not in using GenAI, but in how they do it. Here are five ways that you can avoid sounding like the content equivalent of muzak in a mid-market hotel lobby.
1) Match rising expectations
Far from lowering expectations, AI has raised them.
Now that content is easy to generate, these have become your premium features: originality, judgement, clarity, human-ness. Your readers want to believe that every word has been, if not chosen, then curated, by a real and expert person.
Some AI engines offer creative modes and personalities that can imitate this, but there is simply no substitute for the human layer. By all means generate an AI first draft (we at Fox Agency frequently do), but not a single word of it should be published without an experienced writer’s review and approval.
2) Less is more
The strongest temptation in the AI era is simply to double volume. Create more content, faster, and ‘flood the zone’. The result is having to watch click-through rates plummet.
Yes, AI brings speed. But to abandon quality control is to lose that crucial aura of human credibility we’ve already mentioned. So here’s our recommendation: take your complete AI content plan for the next quarter, slash it in half, and devote double the time to getting each one right, mostly with the aid of human input.
3) Verify and validate
TrustRadius last year uncovered a fascinating trend: 90% of B2B buyers are cross-checking AI output with cited sources.
What this tells us is that ‘face value’ is decreasing. Your readers now expect your content to be verified and validated. How? By providing accompanying evidence. Don’t expect your key messages to speak for themselves – back them up.
4) Put real people in the spotlight
It’s time to bring the real stars of your organisation forward. Battling AI-era cynicism means introducing your audience to living and breathing experts who can deliver real insight.
Make content production a team game. Gather a network of subject matter experts – named authors with roles and experience – and feature them in content pieces. Not only does this improve perceptions, but it introduces accountability. It can even be the start of a sales conversation: instead of an anonymous contact form, why not offer direct initial dialogue with your thought leader?
5) Separate thought leadership from selling
GenAI has a tendency to jumble objective commentary and sales. Blurring the two is a sure way to undermine credibility, especially in long-form assets.
Instead, give thought leadership time and space to work its magic. At first draft, prompt your AI to leave the sales messages until later. Finally, insert clear design transitions that separate the two.
The opportunity
Brands that use AI to churn out more content will blend into the background. Those that use it to support better thinking – and invest in quality, clarity, and human input – will stand out like a bunch of poppies in a verge full of weeds in August.
Because in a world of seemingly infinite content, trust becomes the filter. Those that take the time to earn it are the ones that truly stand out.