The paradox in two numbers
A year ago, 82% of US consumers said AI-powered search was more helpful than traditional search. That number is now 54%.
In the same period, 70% of consumers say they're using AI search tools more than they did last year.
That's the finding from a new Fractl study conducted with Search Engine Land — 1,008 US consumers and 150 marketers surveyed in June 2026. It's the most counterintuitive data point in digital marketing right now: falling trust, rising usage, both at the same time.
Why people use things they don't fully trust
People use AI search because it's faster. They don't fully trust it because it's sometimes wrong. Both things are true simultaneously, and there's no contradiction.
Think about how you use your phone's GPS. You know it occasionally takes wrong turns. You still use it every day because the alternative is slower. That's the relationship most consumers are building with AI search right now.
The 54% who still call it helpful aren't evangelists. Of that group, 37% describe it as "somewhat helpful" and only 17% say "much more helpful." The conviction behind the adoption is thin. That matters.
The 39% problem brands should lose sleep over
Here's the number that gets buried: 39% of consumers now say heavy AI use by a brand reduces their trust in that brand. A year ago, that number was 20%.
Nearly doubled in twelve months.
What it's measuring is saturation with AI-generated content — the homogenized ad copy, the AI Overview snippets that all read the same, the chatbot responses that feel frictionless but empty. Consumers are noticing. They're starting to penalize brands for it.
If you're running Conversational Discovery Ads or relying on Google's AI Max to generate your headlines, the creative coming out of that system is now part of what consumers are forming trust opinions about. Not just whether the ad clicked, but whether the company behind it is worth believing.
The skeptic segment grew six times over
AI skeptics — consumers who actively distrust AI search results — went from 3% to 17% in one year.
17% of US consumers is not a niche. That's a segment large enough to move category-level metrics in almost any vertical. For high-consideration purchases — healthcare, financial services, home goods, anything over $200 — the overlap between your actual buyers and active AI skeptics is probably larger than your analytics suggest.
These users are not navigating AI Mode. They're using traditional organic search, direct navigation, and branded queries. If your SEO investment has been deprioritized because AI Mode traffic looks larger in aggregate reports, you're quietly losing this audience.
What zero-click at 68% actually tells you now
Zero-click searches now account for 68% of all queries — a separate data point, but it pairs with the trust findings in a useful way.
68% zero-click doesn't mean 68% of users got what they needed. Some did. Some got an AI summary they half-believed, decided not to click anything, and left. You have no way to separate those groups in your current analytics.
This means impression share in AI results is a reach metric, not a conversion metric. You reach a user who may or may not trust what they just read. Whether that impression translates into anything depends on how your brand is represented in the summary — not just whether you appear.
What to do with this
You can't opt out of AI search. The traffic volume is real. But the way you show up matters more than it did a year ago.
Pull your AI Overview and AI Mode impression data in Search Console. Look at where you're appearing and on what query types. Low click rates on brand queries in AI results are a trust signal problem, not a format problem.
If you're running AI-generated creative at scale in PMax, AI Max, or ChatGPT Ads, run at least a parallel test with human-authored copy. The 39% finding is a trend, not just a data point. Your account data may not surface it yet, but the consumer response is heading in one direction.
And for the 17% skeptic segment: don't abandon organic. These users are actively avoiding AI surfaces and looking for signals of genuine brand authority — editorial coverage, review velocity, direct traffic. They won't come through your AI Mode placements.
If you want to see how your brand footprint looks across both AI and traditional search surfaces, the free account audit at Gromerce shows you the gaps in three minutes.
Consumer trust and consumer behavior are finally moving in opposite directions. The question is which one your strategy is built around.
Sources: Fractl / Search Engine Land AI Search Trust Study, Search Engine Land, June 2026
