Local Search, AI & Trust

Given the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive AI market, we wanted to understand whether trust in AI, especially in a local context, was eroding. Our initial consumer surveys in December 2024 and June 2025 showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents trusted AI output or responses.

There were several indications that might have changed. Our thesis was that if trust went down so would usage. But that doesn't quite seem to be what's happening.

We fielded a flash survey of 460 US adult consumers in late August to assess the state of local search and trust in AI results vs. traditional search (i.e., Google). What the results show is something more complex than a simple "trust" vs. "don't trust" bifurcation, with trust eroding in some areas and increasing in others.