Influencer marketing has long been built around a simple premise that consumers trust people they follow more than they trust traditional advertising. AI is changing that. A 2026 Gartner survey found that 35% say they now rely less on influencers for shopping information and recommendations because of the growing prevalence of AI-generated content.
AI Is Making Consumers More Skeptical
The shift goes beyond influencers. Gartner found that 65% of consumers believe brands are producing too much AI-generated marketing content, while 57% said AI-generated content has made them less trusting of brand messaging overall.
Google’s push toward AI‑generated answers is reshaping the web in ways that could leave publishers struggling and users less satisfied.
Read AI Search Is Hurting Publishers and Trust
That creates a new challenge for marketers. AI makes it possible to produce social posts, videos, product descriptions, images, ads and influencer-style content faster and at much greater scale. But consumers increasingly know that what they see online may have been created, rewritten, enhanced or even entirely fabricated using AI. So…they trust everything less.
Do you know what your customers actually want from you? Not just what they buy, but what they aspire to, what motivates their decisions, and whether your brand truly has a chance to influence them. It sounds like a simple question, yet many organizations invest heavily in marketing without fully understanding the people they hope to reach.
Read Do You Really Know What Your Customers Want? And, Are They Gettable?
Consumers Are Looking for Real People
Perhaps the most striking finding is what consumers are doing in response. Gartner reported that 43% of consumers now rely more heavily on real people (NOT INFLUENCERS) for shopping information and recommendations because AI-generated content has become so prevalent.
That does not necessarily mean influencer marketing is disappearing. Instead, the definition of a credible influencer may be changing. Followers may place greater value on identifiable expertise, personal experience, original photography, candid video and other signals that suggest a recommendation comes from an actual person rather than an automated content pipeline.
