How businesses are responding to a market where customers increasingly question whether marketing content is authentic
By Dana Whitfield
A survey released on August 5 put a number on something marketers have been circling for two years. Cashew Research asked 2,149 consumers across the United States and Canada what they assume about the content brands put in front of them. Eighty-seven percent said they believe at least some of it is AI-generated. Only 13 percent said they were very confident they could tell the difference.
The second number is the one worth sitting with. Skepticism without the ability to verify doesn’t necessarily make buyers more careful. It can make them discount everything at once. Cashew’s respondents named the categories that worry them most: health, finance, customer testimonials, and behind-the-scenes content. Those are four areas where consumers may place particular importance on the credibility of the information presented to them.
The research is vendor-produced and should be read that way. But the finding it lands on is consistent with what several operators say they are already seeing in their own markets. When persuasion gets cheap, the things that are expensive to fake can start doing some of the work that copy used to do.
Running a Trial to Support a Product Claim
Dr. Evan Zhao is a chemical engineer and synthetic biologist whose previous work included founding Revela. His current venture, RE:YOU, sells a serum for women experiencing hair thinning, in a category he has publicly described as one where consumers often encounter strong product claims.
The company’s position is that relatively few products in the category have been directly compared with minoxidil, a widely used treatment for hair loss. RE:YOU says it is conducting a double-blinded, randomized study involving 190 women and high-resolution scalp imaging, with the company reporting interim findings from the study.
The design itself is part of the company’s argument. A randomized controlled trial takes time, requires a defined methodology, and can produce findings that do not necessarily support the sponsor’s expectations. That makes the decision to conduct such research potentially meaningful when evaluating how a company supports its product claims.
Before-and-after images and consumer testimonials can be difficult for buyers to independently assess. Formal research, when properly designed, documented, and interpreted, may provide another source of information. RE:YOU has positioned its study as an effort to provide additional evidence regarding its product, although the study remains subject to the limitations and interpretation of the underlying research.
Zhao has said that part of his motivation for founding RE:YOU was concern about the quality of science and marketing used within parts of the hair-care category. Whether more companies adopt similar forms of testing remains an open question.
The Number a Wealth Manager Will Put in Writing
Kevin Brunner says he has spent more than two decades building The Q Companies around a model in which several services used by clients are handled within affiliated operations rather than exclusively referred to outside providers. These services include areas such as trust administration, 1031 exchange accommodation, and asset management.
Brunner’s argument concerns what he calls “interested advice,” a phrase he uses to describe situations in which an advisor may have an economic stake in one recommendation over another. His response has been structural, with the firm expanding the range of services handled within its organization.
According to Brunner, some clients pay under 1.5 percent in combined costs, compared with figures closer to 3 percent under certain previous arrangements. Those figures are presented as Brunner’s description of client costs and can vary depending on the services, structures, and circumstances involved. They should not be interpreted as a prediction of savings or as financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.
Brunner also states that he holds the Trust and Estate Practitioner designation and has been involved with the Orange County chapter of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Such professional credentials and organizational roles, when independently administered, can provide prospective clients with information beyond a firm’s own marketing claims.
Financial services have a longer history with disclosure requirements than many sectors. Regulations developed in part to provide consumers and investors with greater visibility into fees, conflicts, and other information that may affect financial decisions. What Cashew’s respondents describe may reflect a broader expectation for similar transparency in categories that historically operated with less formal disclosure.
When a Company Can’t Verify Its Own Operations
Angelo Huang’s company, Swif.ai, works on that layer, providing device-management technology designed to help organizations oversee software and AI-related activity across company-managed devices.
The gap between technology adoption and internal policy can open quickly. An employee may adopt a new AI tool in a browser tab, use it while working with customer information or draft materials, and create activity that may not be immediately visible through traditional IT oversight systems. Nothing about that necessarily requires bad intent. It can simply mean an organization’s understanding of its own operations becomes outdated as new tools are adopted.
That matters for the trust question because claims about internal practices can be difficult for customers to verify independently. Cashew’s respondents flagged behind-the-scenes content as a category they distrust, which resembles a challenge enterprise buyers can encounter during vendor review.
Huang’s position is that organizations may increasingly need stronger device-level visibility and controls if they want to accurately describe how technology is being used within their operations. Swif.ai is one company developing tools around that premise.
Buying Equipment You Can’t Inspect
Porta Potties For Sale, run by Noah Manders, sells portable sanitation equipment online to contractors, event organizers, municipalities, schools, and faith-based organizations. Its catalog includes standard construction units, ADA-compliant restrooms, shower trailers, and fleet packages, along with delivery and financing options.
The trust problem here is unglamorous and is addressed largely through specificity. A contractor ordering forty units for a job site may be purchasing equipment they will not physically inspect until delivery. Information such as dimensions, product specifications, applicable compliance standards, delivery details, and financing terms can therefore become important parts of the purchasing decision.
The site operates alongside other properties under the Porta Potty World umbrella, with different sites focused on areas such as purchasing, rentals, and supplies. The company says this structure is intended to direct customers toward information that is more closely related to what they are looking for.
None of that depends entirely on persuasion. It is closer to documentation.
The Cost of Verification
Verification is slow and it is rarely cheap. Zhao’s company chose to conduct a study that could produce results different from what it expected. Brunner describes spending years restructuring parts of his firm’s service model around transparency and internal capabilities. Huang’s customers use technology designed to provide greater visibility into practices companies may already be expected to understand and document.
Cashew’s respondents put product quality at 38 percent and real customer stories at 31 percent among the things they said can help a brand stand out. Both generally take time to accumulate. Neither can necessarily be produced on deadline.
For companies that have spent years optimizing the speed and volume of their messaging, that creates a different challenge. As consumers become more aware of AI-generated content and increasingly skeptical of what they encounter online, the burden may be shifting away from simply making a persuasive claim and toward showing why that claim should be believed.
