The Digital Experience is Cracking — and Customers Are Feeling It
Digital has lost its sparkle. Not because the tools aren’t powerful, but because the experiences are increasingly fractured. According to the Accenture Life Trends 2025 report, 62% of people now cite trust as a key factor in whether they’ll engage with a brand. Yet the very platforms built to foster connection and discovery are being flooded with misinformation, deep-fakes, and AI-generated “slop” that erodes credibility.
- 52% of people have experienced scams using deep-fakes.
- 48.6% often or always question the authenticity of news.
(Accenture Life Trends Survey, 2024)
From fake product reviews to deep-fake endorsements, the internet is becoming a maze of hesitation. And when trust evaporates, so do conversions, customer loyalty, and lifetime value.
The Cost of Hesitation: Every Click, Every Scroll
The report’s flagship trend—“The Cost of Hesitations”—is a clarion call to marketers: the erosion of trust online is not just a privacy or safety issue; it’s a commercial one. If users doubt your content, question your reviews, or suspect your visuals, they hesitate. And hesitation is the death knell of digital commerce.
This is not just a UX issue. It’s a CX, brand, and revenue issue.
- Search fatigue: People are bypassing Google altogether in favor of Reddit or direct-to-retailer searches.
- Image skepticism: 90% of users want to know if an image is AI-generated (Getty, 2023).
- Content clutter: AI-generated articles and affiliate-choked search results are choking genuine content.
From Content to Credibility: The Strategic Shift Marketers Must Make
So what now? Brands must pivot from volume to veracity. This means:
- _ Create ‘beacons of trust’ in your marketing: Use verified authors, transparency in AI use, and visible authenticity indicators.
- _ Go beyond SEO—go EQ: Empathize with your audience’s digital fatigue. Help them navigate it.
- _ Consider blockchain and QR codes for authenticity in product and content origin.
- _ Rethink channels: Email, in-store, events, even direct mail—all may see a revival as social becomes more untrustworthy.
What Comes Next? A New Opportunity for Brand Builders
Let’s be clear: the internet isn’t going away. But how people use it is changing. The ‘trust gap’ is the new competitive battleground. Those who lead with empathy, verifiability, and real-world consistency will win—whether in healthcare, fashion, finance, or food.
“In the end, the customer is going to find out whether the product is real or fake. And if it’s fake, then you’ve lost the customer forever.”
— Azure’de, 38, U.S. (Accenture Life Trends 2025)
As a marketing agency, our job is to help brands not only be seen—but be believed. Because attention is no longer the scarcest resource—trust is.
Sources:
- Accenture Life Trends 2025 Report
- Getty Images Global Consumer Study, 2023
- Accenture Life Trends Survey Data, 2024
