Terri Hall.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2025 and forward to next year.
Terri Hall, Managing Partner, TRA
Trust has always been a valuable currency for marketing. But in 2025, trust became more fluid, specifically where people place trust. The trajectory is clear, trust is migrating from brands themselves, through online social proof, and now increasingly toward AI-powered recommendations.
The first major shift came with the rise of peer-to-peer trust online. People’s ability to discover and uncover brand actions didn’t always align with mission statements and then sharing and learning from others prioritised what friends, family, and even strangers online said about products over what brands claimed about themselves.
This was behavioural economics in action. Customers turned to their social networks for a source of truth and trust and reviews, recommendations, and testimonials became increasingly important.
The past year has seen this peer-trust dynamic commercialise at scale. TikTok Shop's launch in Australia exemplifies how influencer e-commerce has matured with trust as its driving force. Influencers aren't just endorsing products anymore, instead because they are trusted by followers, they're becoming the shopping experience itself, seamlessly integrating discovery and purchase in a single action.
When an influencer recommends a product, it doesn't feel like advertising. It feels like advice from someone who knows you, which makes influencer commerce very powerful.
Brands that once controlled their entire customer journey now find themselves dependent on intermediaries who've captured the trust brands themselves have seen decline. This is trust as a tradable asset, and in 2025 it’s never been more evident as it reshapes purchase decision making.
But even as influencer commerce accelerated, we witnessed an even more disruptive trust paradigm. AI-powered recommendations. In 2025, consumers increasingly turned to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity not just for information, but for decision-making. Instead of Googling "best running shoes" and sifting through sponsored links to reach brand websites, users ask AI tools directly. And they trusted the answer.
This results in a compression of the traditional search journey. AI doesn't just provide options, it delivers tailored recommendations with authority, so it feels objective and personalised. It’s playing the trusted advisor role.
What this means for 2026 and beyond
For brands, this trust migration is a challenge. It’s more than "How do we rank on Google?" versus "How do we become included in the answer AI gives?" It’s where is the locus of trust, what is the source of authority for trust?
Moving into 2026, this is going to require multiple shifts for brand marketers. Of course, brands are going to have to optimise for AI visibility, creating comprehensive, accurate, structured information that AI systems can easily parse and cite. Product specifications, authentic customer feedback, and clear value propositions become even more critical when AI is the intermediary.
However, brands need to ensure their differentiation is clear and compelling enough to survive translation through AI interpretation. They will need to double down on brand perceptions, salience and associations, and consistently deliver the promises they make so that they own the high ground on trust in a world where you may never directly engage with the customer.
Finally, brands will have to work out how to build trust with AI systems themselves, ensuring consistent presence across the data sources these systems train on, maintaining strong third-party validation, and creating genuine value that generates organic mentions.
The implications are significant. Smart brands will have to build multi-layered trust strategies that work across all three layers: maintaining brand integrity, collaborating authentically with influencers, and optimising for AI recommendation engines.
The brands that will thrive in 2026 and beyond, will be those that understand trust is no longer something you can assume lies with the brand as the source of authority. It's something you must earn across an ecosystem of validators, human and artificial alike.
In this new AI-driven world, the question isn't whether your brand is trustworthy, but whether the systems and sources people trust believe you are.
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