Consumers are engaging with AI in ever-growing numbers, but the technology itself is so new — and is changing so rapidly — that many organizations are in a constant game of catch-up when it comes to effective AI governance. That’s created a host of trust issues that will have to be resolved for AI to continue growing, particularly as it moves into agentic commerce, which gives AI-powered agents more autonomy but also creates more potential points of confusion and/or failure.
For retailers, building customers’ trust in AI-powered processes should be an urgent priority, particularly if those customers skew younger: more than a third (37%) of consumers ages 18 to 34 find a brand is more trustworthy if it is transparent about its AI use. That’s according to the 2026 Retail Resiliency Report by the Strategic Communications division of FTI Consulting, which surveyed 967 adults in March 2026.
Among this Gen Z cohort, unethical AI use — which can range from a company using AI-generated images without identifying them as such to more serious actions such as creating deepfakes — now ranks alongside greenwashing as a brand trust-killer, at 26% for each. And these younger consumers are willing to act if a retailer’s values or actions don’t line up with theirs: 68% said they had stopped purchasing from a brand over the past year because of its values, more than double the 33% of consumers aged 55+ who switched brands over a values-related issue.
Gen Z Aligns Spending with Values
The fact that the survey questions were asked about actions already taken, rather than simply being considered, is a strong indication that a significant portion of younger consumers are actually voting with their wallets. In other words, there’s no gap between what they say and what they do.
That “say-do” gap is one reason why, for example fast fashion has remained so popular, even among people who recognize the damage it does to the environment. But “we’re seeing that people have made decisions based on their values in this case,” said Rachel Rosenblatt, Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.
Those values also include how a company treats its own employees: 45% of Gen Z respondents rank employee treatment as a top-tier trust driver, nearly as important as product quality (47%) and higher than traditional “purpose” pillars such as sustainability (41%) and brand stance (37%).
Using a company’s treatment of its employees as a purchase decision factor “represents not just a shift in the way people are interacting with companies, but also the information that’s available to them,” said Rosenblatt. “When I started my career, there was no Glassdoor [to learn about a company’s inner workings] — that anonymous, anyone-can-post-anything type of platform. I think what we’re starting to see is that the Gen Z consumers have a really high BS meter, and also that they are doing their own research.”
Mitigate Crises with Deep Customer Knowledge
The growing ubiquity of AI search also is placing new burdens on brands and marketers. Because AI-optimized search encompasses not just simple product and availability data but a wide array of additional information sources, many more aspects of a company’s operations — including its reputation among employees, vendors and other customers — determine whether a brand shows up in a consumer’s search.
That’s particularly concerning if a retailer is experiencing a crisis of some kind, as will inevitably happen in even the best-run companies. The good news is that “a company experiencing a crisis won’t be judged by the crisis itself — it’s how they respond to it,” said Rosenblatt. “In politics they say that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. In retail I’d evolve that phrase to say that the cover-up is always more expensive than the crime.”
The stakes are high: the FTI survey revealed that 76% of consumers have left a brand over how it handled a crisis issue. In today’s always-on environment, brand perception is being shaped in real time, and crisis response has become a direct revenue lever, affecting how quickly customers return (or don’t).
“There are tried-and-true crisis communication principles: acknowledge the problem if you’re at fault, use a human tone when responding, and make sure you have the right follow-up to do what you said you’d do,” said Rosenblatt. “At other times, when there’s a moment of controversy caused, for example, by an ad campaign, companies might actually need to avoid a quick response; they need to look into and better understand where the protests are coming from.
“Both real and artificially constituted groups can make a lot of noise, so you need to figure out if it’s a bot-driven campaign or it’s driven by your own customers,” Rosenblatt explained. “Is it a real crisis, or is it being generated by another group of people? People who are certainly entitled to believe what they want but who are never going to shop with you, no matter what?”
To help manage these situations, “knowing who your audience is — what they stand for and what they believe in — is so critical to helping you make smart decisions in the moment,” said Rosenblatt. “The time to really know your customers is now, not wait until there’s a problem or crisis. If you wait until then, you’ll be so behind the 8-ball that you’ll do more damage.”
