Evidence suggests the gap between executive optimism and customer sentiment is widening, and CX leaders are caught directly in the crossfire.
Less than one in five Americans believe artificial intelligence is mostly good for society, according to a New York Times survey published this year. More than a third say it is mostly bad…
Despite boardroom optimism and stock market hype, the majority of consumers distrust AI. When Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged those figures publicly on the Hard Fork podcast last month, it was striking less for the candor than for who was saying it. The leader of arguably the world’s most powerful AI company was, in effect, conceding that the industry has run ahead of the people it is supposed to serve.
For enterprise technology and CX leaders, that admission lands differently than it does in a venture capital boardroom. They are the ones who have been handed the deployment roadmap and who field the calls when it goes wrong.
Why Are Consumers Skeptical of AI in Customer Experience?
Consumer distrust of AI is not abstract or irrational. It is grounded in lived experience…
Gartner data shows that 64% of customers would prefer that companies not use AI in customer service at all. Only 24% feel comfortable with AI handling complex tasks such as complaints, policy decisions, or sensitive account queries, according to research from Workato.
Meanwhile, the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer captures a broader climate of institutional distrust – 61% of respondents globally carry a moderate or high sense of grievance toward business, and the perception that companies serve narrow interests over public ones has never been higher (perhaps unsurprising in the same week where SpaceX’s IPO made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire?).
AI, deployed clumsily, confirms every one of these suspicions, particularly given the recent wave of AI-enabled mass tech layoffs.
High-profile AI failures have done measurable damage. Air Canada’s chatbot famously promised refund amounts the airline had no intention of honoring, resulting in a legal ruling against it.
Klarna – once the poster child for AI-first customer service, having previously claimed its chatbot could do the work of 700 agents, quietly reversed course in 2025 and resumed hiring human representatives after customer satisfaction collapsed.
These cautionary tales are timely reminders for every CX leader that AI technologies are still in their infancy and have a long way to go before they are truly accepted by the public.
What Does This Mean for Enterprise AI Deployment?
There is now a significant tension within many boardrooms between operational realities and executive visions. C-suite pressure to deploy AI at scale has, if anything, intensified as AI adoption reached 78% of enterprises in 2025, with vendors promising significant productivity gains.
But the people responsible for executing that vision – CX directors, contact center managers, heads of digital experience – are operating in a very different reality. They are managing customer populations that are skeptical by default, support teams anxious about job security, and technology that, as the Klarna case demonstrated, can degrade customer outcomes when deployed without adequate human oversight.
All the while, they are dealing with boardroom pressure from executives who have often never actually used the technologies they are mandating.
Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report found that only 42% of customers trust businesses to use AI ethically – a figure that has fallen from 58% just two years prior.
EY’s Patricia Camden outlined the issue in a recent analysis by Customer Experience Dive:
“Organizations are adopting AI technically, but they’re not enabling it culturally.”
The deployment of technology has become decoupled from the trust-building work that should precede it.
Is “Responsible Pacing” the Solution?
Speaking on the Hard Fork podcast, Google CEO Sundar Pichai compared building trust in AI to the rollout of self-driving vehicles – incremental, earned step by step, with security and transparency as preconditions rather than afterthoughts. That framing resonates in CX: consumers will accept AI for routine tasks – password resets, delivery tracking, FAQ queries – but they draw a hard line at judgment-sensitive interactions involving billing disputes, medical questions, or financial advice.
The enterprise leaders getting this right appear to share a common trait: they have refused to treat AI deployment as a feature launch and insisted on treating it as a trust exercise.
What Should CX Leaders Do Now?
The practical implication is not to slow down – it is to sequence differently. The missing ingredient in most AI rollout strategies is not better technology; it is a consent and communication layer that brings customers along rather than surprising them.
Zendesk research found that customer confidence drops when bots are designed to sound human. Clarity routinely outperforms simulation.
For CX decision-makers navigating board pressure to accelerate and customer sentiment urging them to slow down, the most defensible position is probably the one Pichai articulated, even if he was speaking about something broader: earn trust before you expand the footprint. The companies that will look prescient in three years are not the ones that deployed the fastest – they are the ones that deployed in ways customers actually accepted.
That distinction is not well understood in most boardrooms right now. It is, however, increasingly well understood by the customers on the other end of the line.
FAQs
Why are consumers skeptical of AI in customer service?
High-profile failures, a lack of transparency about when AI is being used, and concerns about data privacy have eroded consumer confidence in AI-powered CX.
What percentage of customers prefer companies not use AI?
According to Gartner, 64% of customers would prefer companies not use AI in their customer service interactions.
What is the “anxiety gap” in AI adoption?
It refers to the disconnect between the optimism of technology leaders deploying AI and the skepticism of the consumers and frontline teams experiencing it.
What is the current state of consumer trust in AI?
Only 42% of customers trust businesses to use AI ethically, down from 58% two years ago, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report.
