Adobe Trust Report Has Good News for AI

Brand trust is powerful yet fleeting. Consumer trust in a brand creates the foundation for a relationship, not just a transaction. But trust is precious. One brand misstep can destroy trust. The 2022 Adobe Trust Report is a significant resource for all brands to understand the factors that influence consumer trust. Released at the 2022 Adobe Summit, the report provides a number of eye-opening insights. Among them: artificial intelligence (AI) could be an important key to building trust – more so than ever.

Where Did Adobe Get Its Data for the Trust Report?

The report is a snapshot of the state of consumer trust, especially online. Adobe partnered with Advanisto to survey more than 12,000 consumers and 2,000 senior business leaders at companies with more than 50 employees. The questionnaire was designed to look at trust across multiple dimensions, including brand values, data, customer experience, content, artificial intelligence, and workplace. The global survey encompassed 15 countries.

What Did the Adobe Trust Report Say?

The Adobe Trust Report uncovered a number of findings, such as the importance of personal experiences. For example, the survey revealed that 56 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to trust brands that use technology to deliver personalized experiences.

Here’s one finding that really jumped out at us: consumers trust artificial intelligence to make their experience more valuable. According to the report:

• 72 percent of consumers say they trust AI to improve their customer experiences to at least some degree.
• 45 percent of consumers are optimistic that AI will improve their customer experiences even more in the future.
• Gen Z is even more optimistic at 63 percent.

Meanwhile, brands recognize the promise of AI, but AI bias is a concern:

• 89 percent of brands trust that AI is making their customers' experiences better, but 65 percent have also observed AI-driven bias.

Why These Findings Matter

AI is proving its value with consumers. This is a huge finding. Remember, AI-fueled products such as smart speakers are still young. The Amazon Alexa voice assistant didn’t even exist until late 2014. As more people have used AI-based products, consumer watchdogs have raised concerns ranging from “Can we trust these products to do what they are intended to do?” to “Can we trust these products to respect our privacy?” These are important concerns. And yet, people’s actions demonstrate that they’re trusting AI. The sale of smart speakers alone has increased sixfold since 2017. Smart appliances are growing at a 14 percent annual rate.

One reason for the uptake of AI might be that AI is a more natural part of the product, working in the background to make experiences better. In other words, people are more comfortable with AI because they are not even aware they are using it anymore. According to research conducted by Nimdzi with Centific, 63 percent of users don’t even realize they are using an AI-powered product.

The Opportunity for AI to Build Trust through Personalization -- Globally

But AI still has a way to go in order to build trust at a truly global level. This reality is underlined by the 65 percent of brands that told Adobe they observed AI bias.  For AI to be accepted around the world, AI must create lovable experiences in every global market ranging from Nigeria to Japan to Bolivia. In order for that to happen, businesses must figure out how to localize AI-based products, or make them authentic to local cultures. To do that, businesses must train AI with localized data – collecting and curating data sets that respond to cultures in different markets.

Localizing AI – if done correctly -- is key to overcoming bias. There is a nagging perception that AI is created by a small group of data scientists who represent a narrow set of markets. Therefore, AI is built for a small group of people, which is how bias creeps into AI. According to Centific Chief Globalization Officer Jonas Ryberg, AI localization can force a business into being more inclusive and trustworthy because localizing AI requires a business to tap into a diverse pool of people from around the world to train the products with proper data. A global set of resources provides, at a minimum, a diversity in languages spoken – but fighting goes way beyond language. For example, a product that uses computer vision needs to be able to understand different types of characters in multiple markets. A search engine must adapt to the context of how people expect information to be presented to them in different markets. Having a diverse team of humans in the loop is essential.

Fighting bias through AI localization means, among other things:

• Designing AI with humans at the center. Part of doing that means building personas that are more diverse and nuanced than generic personas businesses have become accustomed to using.
• Relying on a globally diverse team of people who represent different cultures, languages, and domain expertise to train data that AI products use. The resources must possess domain expertise, too – for instance, specialty knowledge of industries such as healthcare.
• Supporting people with the technology required to collect and curate data globally. For instance, it is far too expensive and impractical for people to collect hundreds of thousands of images around the world manually in order to train computer vision to be inclusive. People need a technology platform to support this process. Finding people who can collect hundreds of thousands of data assets with the help of technology is an enormous task. In many cases, data collection services need to be done properly respecting privacy.
• Applying analytics to properly track the progress of your efforts.

This is all part of a broader approach known as Mindful AI. With Mindful AI, businesses develop AI-based products that put the needs of people first. Mindful AI considers especially the emotional wants and needs of all people for which an AI product is designed – not just a privileged few. When businesses practice mindful AI, they develop AI-based products are more relevant and useful to all the people they serve.

Contact Centific

At Centific, we believe that taking a mindful, inclusive approach to developing AI-based solutions globally will make AI more trustworthy – and overcome bias at the same time. And that’s a big victory for consumer trust. Contact Centific to learn how to personalize AI-based products globally to build trust.