Why trust should be the number one priority for AI customer experience

You may only have one chance to gain the trust of an end user when deploying AI. If your AI makes one mistake, you've lost 60% of them. Speed, efficiency, accuracy, level of advancement are all aspects of AI worth touting and being part of a sales process. But, the number one feature you have to showcase is trust.

Building trust in AI, especially agentic AI, is a challenge an entire organization must work together on. Leadership from the top down must collaborate in their efforts to improve understanding, keeping thorough records, and be dedicated to clean, concise, open and honest communication. Without this, your AI will become useless. 

It All Begins with Understanding

That 60% number mentioned earlier is 60% of the people that trust AI to begin with. Overall, only 46% of people globally trust AI systems. People will not trust the technology until they gain some understanding. If your client base doesn't understand how AI works, or how and why your company is using it then they have every right to be hesitant in its use.

Traditional AI models can be difficult to explain to a novice, so when you attempt to describe agentic AI, which we specialize in deploying at Quant, there is a layer of complexity that our clients need an understanding of before accepting it. Explainable AI must be the foundation of trust building with clients. From our perspective what works best is designing our systems so they show clearly what data is used by agentic AI to make decisions, and then how the agentic AI leveraged that data to come to its decisions. We also go a step further and create and share the  rules that led the agentic to that outcome. 

Starting as simple as this, using AI in an explainable way so that you can systematically walk your clients through the technology and the how and why behind it is crucial at the beginning and throughout a business or partner relationship. Then, every question can be answered and every fear calmed. 

Record Keeping Is Another Key to Unlocking Trust

It's not the sexiest answer, but you must be able to show your work. After trust is established, you don't own it, it must be earned every year, quarter, day, and AI decision. Every decision driven by AI has to have with it detailed records that explain the data used, and logic that drives it so all processes and results can be shown and explained whenever needed or asked for. 

Every AI driven decision should be accompanied by a detailed record that documents the logic behind it so the trail can be audited wherever desired. As an ancillary, this traceability is also important for any work you do with regulators. The ability to show a clear reasoning chain will in essence stop AI from becoming a black box with no access points. 

Clean, Concise, Open, and Honest Communication

Clean, concise, open and honest communication is vital to maintaining trust and in turn, maintaining clients. You must speak to clients and employees alike in plain and understandable language without technical or corporate jargon which will come off as vague and even condescending. 

Hearing sentences such as "We must accelerate timelines to enable our ability to synergize with cross functional departments to meet the needs of the world of artificial intelligence today" may sound smart, but you're going to lose the attention of anyone you're speaking to. Instead try, "We have to complete the launch of the new AI project a little faster so we are on the same schedule as the rest of the teams we're working with." You said the same thing, but in a way that is simple, plainspoken, and understandable by anyone listening. 

Reporting must be approached in the same manner. You have to speak the language of those you are delivering reports to. No matter how granular and impressive your dashboards are, if the person reading them doesn't understand them then they are useless. In the launch phase of a project you need to understand what the end users' goals are and find a way to track and report those goals in language that you have a shared understanding of. 

Trust Must Be Earned Everyday 

As I mentioned earlier, after trust is established, you don't own it. Remember this everyday. Your clients and end-users have all been duped or fooled by some company in the past when it comes to technology and they will have their guard up. As stated in a study from EY Studios "Customers will have a bias for human-to-human interaction when dealing with a complex interaction. As we design these services, we'll need to think about how we overcome this bias and train customers to use it effectively." 

Any new deployment, upgrade, system enhancement, or even update of the website or dashboard needs to be clearly communicated early. People need to hear why, how, and what's in it for them. How will this make their experience or return on investment better? If you currently receive great trust from your client and customer base, that is a great place to start. Leverage that in communications, and be sure to solve any outstanding issues and calm any current fears before launching any new AI. 

Artificial intelligence, especially agentic AI, can be the tool to change your business and industry forever, but your clients and end-users have to buy in. If the people you are intending to use the technology don't trust it, they won't use it. Then what do you have? Nothing but technology and lost revenue. 

Speed, efficiency, accuracy, and advancement will all be beneficial results of AI, but if no one trusts you then they are just a tree that falls in the forest with no one around to hear it.