The growing use of AI in advertising appears to carry a risk to brand trust, raising concerns for auto retail as more dealerships lean into artificial intelligence to help drive sales.
The details: A recent report by research company Cint, titled The Authenticity Audit: AI, Advertising, and the New Rules of Consumer Trust, reveals a growing disconnect between the adoption of AI in advertising and consumer comfort with its use to promote products and services.
The Cint findings, based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, are particularly relevant to automotive retail as more automakers and dealerships adopt AI to create more cost-efficient advertising and marketing campaigns.
From the respondents:
74% believe brands and creators have a duty to disclose when AI is used in advertising and marketing campaigns.
44% said discovering that a brand failed to disclose AI-generated advertising would decrease their trust in that brand.
43% identified undisclosed AI or synthetic media as a major reason for losing trust in a brand, ahead of partnerships with non-credible or controversial influencers (38%) and disguised sponsored content (37%).
Digging deeper: Consumer concerns about AI-generated ads extend beyond the technology itself, with many respondents expressing reservations about the types of content created by artificial intelligence.
46% dislike seeing AI-generated people in advertisements, making synthetic human characters the most disliked category tested.
Conversely, 40% selected realistic landscapes as the most-liked AI-generated visual element.
30% reported being very or extremely concerned about AI use in advertising, while 36% described AI-created advertising as untrustworthy and 28% considered it inauthentic.
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Why it matters: As dealerships increasingly use AI to create advertising and marketing content, balancing the efficiency of AI-generated campaigns with transparency and authenticity could become increasingly important to attract buyers and maintain credibility for dealers.
Case in point…
43% of dealers are already using AI solutions in their businesses and 47% plan to do so, with only 10% saying they do not use the technology, according to a 2025 Kerrigan Advisors survey.
An IAB report published in early 2026 found that 83% of advertising executives said their companies had deployed AI in the creative process, up from 60% in a 2024 study.
What they’re saying: “AI is creating tremendous opportunities for advertisers, but hand-in-hand with the ability to produce content faster and at greater scale comes the potential risk of alienating consumers," said Ariel Madway, Director of Brand Experience at Cint. “Our research shows that consumers are paying close attention to how brands use AI, and transparency plays an important role in maintaining their trust.”
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