Trust in AI: What Leaders Really Think
Do leaders trust AI?
Trust in AI is low. Where it exists, it’s conditional.
That’s the clearest finding from our latest research, conducted through Maia, Inspirational Group’s AI interview avatar. One participant gave two separate scores for the same task: 3 out of 10 for AI-generated content alone, 8 out of 10 once a human was visibly involved and named. No leader in the research gave AI unconditional trust. Most scores clustered between 5 and 7, and every score came with a condition attached.
The gap between those two numbers is the finding. It points to three conditions that consistently determine whether AI is trusted at all: visible human oversight, transparency about how AI has been used, and what we’re calling the effort signal, the degree to which careless AI use tells the recipient how much they’re valued.
That reframes AI governance. It isn’t primarily a technology decision. It’s a leadership one.
AI trust research: what leaders told us
This whitepaper combines primary interviews with senior leaders from Inspirational Group’s global alumni network, alongside wider secondary research, to examine how leaders think about AI adoption, accountability and trust.
Inside:
- Why no leader gave AI unconditional trust, and what the spread of scores reveals
- The three conditions that determine whether AI can be trusted in an organization
- The effort signal, and what it means for how leaders deploy AI
- What organizations need to do now to build AI governance that holds up
Written personally by Iain Robertson, without AI drafting or editing.
Get the full findings from one of the first pieces of primary research into how senior leaders think about AI trust and accountability.
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