AI in media: the don't ask/don't tell trust dilemma

AI usage by media companies and the general public is rocketing. So why are publishing brands who are open about their use of AI being punished for their honesty?

by Rich Fairbairn

Published: 12:23, 29 October 2025

Two recent events spotlighted a serious dilemma facing established media and news brands, that while the media and public are embracing AI in life and work, audiences express increasing distaste in the use of AI to create the news. Greater use is not equating to greater trust.

First, let's look at the industry uptake of AI. A good example is the recent INMA Media Innovation Week in Dublin, which showed the alacrity with which the industry is adopting AI tech to its benefit. Stage talks and case studies evidenced how common it already is for AI to feature somewhere in the creation chain of content and products, all examples showing utility far beyond the once-feared basic of use of LLMs to just churn out content on a topic on command - which in fact has never been a thing in serious media for obvious reasons around trust and law. 

Journalists at the INMA event spoke about how they routinely use AI tools to remove tedium and legwork, to help analyse data sets, identify patterns, and turn bland numbers into compelling stories at a pace which yesterday's researchers and assistant reporters would disbelieve.

Product teams described how AI tools can quickly recompose existing content for new audiences and formats, while subscriptions and commercial teams use AI to better match existing content with audiences and unlock new ad strategies.

Forget the making of content by AI, and look instead at how it is making content viable.

But what do "the people" think of it?

The public view on AI: "Do as we say, not as we do!"

The general public mirrors the industry in its rapid embrace of AI for day-to-day things. Just after INMA Dublin concluded, a Reuters Institute report confirmed surging public use of generative AI tools, with an increase in respondents who reported having used AI tech up a mammoth 52.5% in a year. Those who say they used it at least weekly was up even more, rising 88% in a year.

So the public is sold on AI, right? Err, no.

The same Reuters Institute stats highlighted a huge problem media brands face: while they and audiences are familiar with the tech, public acceptability of its use in the newsmaking process is actually going down.

Only 12% believe using AI to fully create news is OK - a figure down from 14% a year ago. The figure of those who accept mostly using AI to create news - but with some human oversight - was flat, at 21%. Given the ballooning usage of AI in the real world, those figures are a boat anchor, and a problem for news orgs and AI companies alike.

The unsettling conclusion is that the more the public uses AI, the less they trust it. If AI fakery in the relatively low-stakes environment of Facebook feeds and YouTube ads is annoying, the idea of it being used in high stakes news is not an upsell. Worse, those who are most cynical of AI seem already to be convinced that it  is being used more widely in newsrooms to generate content than it actually is. Huper-alertness to the use of AI is almost always associated with negative sentiment.

At first glance, this suggests that there is much to be gained by highlighting to audiences exactly where and what AI is being used for in the content lifecycle, that being clear and open would be welcomed.

Err, no. Recent search by Trusting News looking at disclosures of the use of AI by media outlets showed that the instant your site mentions AI usage next to a piece of content, people trust the content less. Even if the disclosure was that no AI was used at all, trust dropped!

However you cut it, the simple mention of AI diminishes trust.

That is despite 94% of people saying they want journalists to disclose their use of AI. In reality, they don't reward that honesty with an increase in trust in that news.

That's a disturbing reality. It looks worse when Reuters Institute stats show that currently only 19% of people regularly notice or see AI disclosures about AI usage in news content. If it became a legal requirement or an industry-driven mandate to outline AI usage, and enormous numbers more people saw such disclosures, the omens for trust in news are not great.

AI warnings: Damned if you do, or don't

So, what do we do? In this case, I do not believe this is a challenge the industry can solve by itself. For a start, different national blocs will have different legal requirements for indicating AI usage - or none at all. There is no one size fits all approach here. 

Secondly, we should be realistic that for every media brand which goes the extra yard in highlighting their use of AI, while declarations are purely voluntary plenty more outlets will say nothing at all - particularly when there seems only to be a negative reaction to it. 

While some regulators posit voluntary industry standards on AI flagging - it is mooted within the EU AI Act as a possible standard, but not a requirement - it seems unlikely that media most sites would flag AI usage if it isn't demanded by law. 

The two critical factors at play to me seem to be how good your relationship is with your audience, so that you can micromanage the exact way you tell them of any AI usage (should you choose to do that) and their pre-existing trust of your brand. 

The second is beyond us all in any single industry and is arguably a broader societal concern: if the AI companies are to avoid killing trust in their golden goose before it's started laying profitable eggs, they should normalise AI declarations, stop courting controversy by promoting the outputs of stolen work, and stop pumping AI slop as a means to benefit individual short-term goals of market share or ad revenue. 

Until then, when it comes to AI in content, trustworthy media is in a tricky spot no matter what it tries.

This article first appeared on the International News Media Association's (INMA) Content Solutions blog.