We live in a world where nobody needs to read your content, nobody needs to search for you on Google, nobody needs to come to your website and nobody needs to give you their email to get access to your gated content
But they can write a prompt and find out all about your company and compare it with your competition all without you knowing all through AI
I read on Linkedin the other day about the fact that Google was still relevant, it is but, the AI usage explosion is real
OpenAI just revealed some wild stats: ChatGPT users are sending 2.5 billion prompts daily, with 330 million coming from the US alone
That's literally one prompt per American per day. And that's just ChatGPT, add in Claude, Gemini, Grok, and every other AI tool, and we're looking at usage that's starting to rival Google search territory
With AI driving the economic value of intelligence to near zero
The only thing that can differentiate you is trust
As this article states “Buyers are questioning not just what's being said but who is saying it and why they should believe it. That's the trust gap”
They go onto say ….
The Trust Gap: When Volume Doesn't Equal Value
"AI can accelerate execution for many tasks, and marketers are using AI most often to produce content. However, more content doesn't equal more trust.
If anything, we're seeing the reverse: B2B buyers are sifting through an avalanche of AI-generated content that looks good on the surface but often misses the mark in substance
It's overly polished, it lacks context, and it rarely reflects real-world use"
The problem is that it all says “buy my product because we are great” and we know as buyers, we just don't care about this content and so we don't read it
“That disconnect is what we call the trust gap, the space between marketing claims and what buyers actually believe”
As outlined in Bridging the Trust Gap: B2B Tech Buying in the Age of AI, trust today isn't about volume; it's about voices
Buyers want to hear from people who've actually used the product, not just the people selling it
They're looking for proof to make a confident decision"
What B2B Buyers Trust in 2025 (Hint: It's Not You)
"Buyers aren't looking to be sold, they're looking to be informed
They want to see how real users in similar roles, at similar companies, are solving the same challenges"
They don't want to deal with salespeople, they want to deal with real people
Trust isn't being built on your homepage, it's being earned where your customers already are on social media
Three Trust-Building Tactics for an AI-First Search Landscape
Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT plugins are quickly becoming the new front doors to the B2B buyer journey.
And although discovery is important, being trusted once you're found is what really moves the needle. That means marketers need to rethink not just what they create, but how and where it shows up.
Here are two tactics we've seen deliver real results.
1. Make your content machine-readable, not just human-friendly
"AI surfaces content based on structure and clarity, not fluff
It's not about stuffing in keywords, it's about structuring your content and data so large language models (LMMs) can connect the dots much like a human would
We are going back to writing for humans instead of a search algorithm"
2. Empower your sales people, in fact empower all your employees
Polished content is ignored by buyers, that x journalist written stuff is, just that
But you have access to the best content writers in the world, for free
Your sales team and your employees are the best people to share their passion for your company
Not writing adverts, but writing their experiences and sharing who they are
By doing this they are creating social proof
Social proof that is readable by humans and AI
Building Internal Trust to Power External Credibility
"Marketers often focus so heavily on outbound messaging that they miss a foundational truth: Trust starts internally
Cross-functional alignment between marketing, sales, and product teams ensures messaging reflects reality, not just aspiration"
The Future of Trust in an AI-Driven Market
As AI gets baked into every step of the B2B buying journey, we're headed toward what can only be described as a flight to quality
It's no longer about who can publish the most, it's about who buyers believe
In this new landscape, trust and relevance are your most valuable SEO assets
Trust isn't a brand slogan
It's something you prove through transparency, authenticity, and consistency
In oversaturated markets, with AI-generated noise, the brands that win will be the ones that put proof before promotion
Final Takeaway
AI can write faster than any marketer, but that's not what builds trust
In B2B today, the real differentiator isn't how polished your content is, it's how believable it is
Buyers want validation from people they relate to, not just messaging from brands
Your role now?
Less about producing more, and more about amplifying voices your audience already trusts: their peers
Let's start empowering our teams to create the social proof that your buyers and AI are looking for
e're living in an era in which AI can execute tasks in one minute what it would take a marketing team to produce in a month. But instead of feeling more informed, B2B buyers are feeling more overwhelmed—and more skeptical. The problem isn't volume. It's trust. As AI-generated content floods our feeds, a new dynamic is taking hold: Buyers are questioning not just what's being said but who is saying it and why they should believe it. That's the trust gap. And according to recent data, it's growing wider, especially when marketing messages feel too polished, disconnected from real-world experiences, or even regurgitated. This article explores what's really driving that skepticism, what kind of content buyers trust today, and how marketers can build credibility in a noisy, AI-first world by leaning into one thing competitors can't replicate:
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