TL;DR
- Reputation is now algorithmic. Generative AI tools are determining what’s credible in real time, and if your brand doesn’t make the cut, you’re invisible.
- Trust is the new currency of visibility, but you can’t earn it the old way. AI isn’t scanning headlines, it’s scoring systemic credibility.
- Trust can’t scale one conversation at a time. Relationship-building still matters, but brands need repeatable systems to show up credibly at scale.
- Good content alone won’t rise. AI doesn’t reward quality in isolation, it looks for signals of trust reinforced across paid, earned, shared, and owned channels.
- The path forward requires a system. Trust must be designed, operationalized, and measured, not treated like a side effect of good intentions.
- Coming next: Part 2 dives into how to use the PESO Model to scale trust across the entire customer journey, plus six practical ways to make it happen.
5 Myths About Trust in the Age of AI
I’m old enough to remember when reputation management meant keeping a close eye on the letters to the editor and praying your CEO’s name didn’t pop up in a less-than-flattering light. If things got dicey, you issued a news release, booked a media interview, and hoped it all blew over by Monday.
Back then (which wasn’t that long ago), you could manually monitor your reputation. You knew who your gatekeepers were, and if you handled it well, you stayed in control of the narrative. Things were so simple then, and we didn’t even know how good we had it.
Fast-forward to today, and reputation is algorithmic. Generative search engines don’t wait for a news release; they decide in real time what answers your audience sees and whether your brand is credible enough to make the cut.
Trust isn’t just important, it’s everything. But trust alone doesn’t get you visibility. Now, you have to scale it.
You Can’t Wing It Anymore
With AI reshaping how content is created, evaluated, and uncovered, it’s clear that building trust in this new ecosystem isn’t optional. But to do that, and do it efficiently, we need a smarter, integrated system.
Recent industry articles around trust and AI point out that trustworthiness is quickly becoming the key criteria in how generative engines determine what content to prioritize. This isn’t a subtle algorithm tweak; it’s a shift in how visibility and trust are earned.
If you’ve been following the conversation on Spin Sucks, you know the future of search is already here, and earning trust is the cost of entry for any brand. But here’s the challenge: trust at scale is hard. Really hard.
That’s especially true when communications and marketing teams are being asked to do more with less—fewer resources, tighter timelines, and growing demands for measurable impact. The brands that will lead are the ones that can build and scale trust across platforms and do it in a way that drives organizational results.
Why Trust and Reputation Matter More Than Ever
We talk a lot about visibility in communications. But visibility without credibility just makes you louder, not more effective.
Credibility is being determined and scored by machines, and generative search engines aren’t just reading your content; they’re evaluating whether your content deserves to be trusted. They’re modeling human decision-making at scale, using a combination of real-time signals and historical presence to determine which voices get elevated and which get ignored.
Here’s what they’re looking at:
- Domain authority: are you consistently seen as a reliable source? This isn’t about one viral hit. It’s about long-term credibility.
- Topical consistency: are you showing depth in the areas you want to be known for, or are you bouncing around with no clear expertise?
- Link credibility: are other trusted sources pointing to your work? Backlinks aren’t just SEO currency; they’re validation.
- Content structure and depth: is your content answering real questions clearly and thoroughly, or just skating the surface?
- Engagement signals: are people sharing, commenting on, and interacting with your content in meaningful ways?
What’s important here is that these aren’t just technical signals; they’re determining how your reputation is represented.
Think about this—if someone’s name comes up in an article, a podcast, a shared post, and a paid placement, all with consistent messaging and value, you start to view them as a credible voice. AI engines are doing the same thing, only faster and at a much larger scale.
That’s why reputation isn’t just a PR function anymore. It’s turned into a discoverability strategy, and if you’re not consistently visible across the channels that feed these systems, your content and your brand simply won’t show up.
And this is where the challenge…err, opportunity… really shows up. You don’t just need to be trusted, you need to be consistent, authentic, and actively present in the places your audiences engage.
That’s what today’s landscape demands, and it’s exactly what the PESO Model© is designed to do at scale!
5 Myths About Trust in the Age of AI
I normally like to focus on what works and where we should focus, but it also helps to address the gaps and potential pitfalls. While most communications and marketing pros know trust is important, many are still stuck applying old assumptions to a very new landscape.
Myth #1: Vanity metrics equal credibility
One of the most persistent myths is that trust can be measured in vanity metrics. A million impressions might look good in a report, but they mean nothing if they aren’t backed by real engagement or validation from credible sources.
Today’s algorithms aren’t counting impressions; they’re counting signals of trust. And they’re smart enough to tell the difference between passive reach and actual authority. So, reach without resonance doesn’t build trust; it just burns budget.
Myth #2: More content = more trust
Then there’s the belief that more content equals more credibility. I’ve done it myself. There was a time when my goal was to publish a new piece of content every day for a year, and that’s exactly what my team did. I was more than excited when I reached the end of that year and didn’t have to worry about publishing a new piece of content the following day. That alone should tell you if that was a sound strategy.
It’s tempting to throw more blog posts, emails, or LinkedIn updates at the wall, hoping something sticks. But generative search engines aren’t fooled by volume; they’re looking for structure, depth, and topical consistency.
It’s not about saying more, it’s about saying the right things, in the right places, over time, consistently. If your content strategy is scattered, AI will assume your expertise is, too.
Myth #3: PR is just about awareness
And let’s not forget the outdated idea that PR is about awareness, not business results. That might’ve been true when we measured success in column inches and advertising equivalency (sorry for even bringing up the dreaded AVE metric Gini Dietrich!), but that’s not true today.
Modern PR should build backlinks, improve search ranking (including generative search results), and create third-party validation that feeds your trust signals, not just media coverage. If your PR efforts aren’t tied to these metrics, you’re leaving both credibility and conversion on the table.
Myth #4: Trust is built one relationship at a time
Another myth is that trust can only be built one relationship at a time. Yes, that’s still true on a human level, and brands should take that approach when considering engagement with consumers and audiences.
While one-on-one trust still matters, it’s not scalable. Brands need a trust infrastructure that works whether you’re talking to 10 people or 10,000. That means that trust has to be operationalized so it can be scaled. You need repeatable systems to show up consistently and credibly across channels, not just hope someone remembers your name from last year’s lunch-and-learn.
Myth #5: If the content is good, AI will find it
And finally, the classic: “If the content is good, AI will find it.”
Ah, if only that were true.
Generative engines don’t reward quality in a vacuum; they reward content that’s consistently trusted across the ecosystem. If your work isn’t being reinforced across all your channels—paid, earned, shared, and owned— it won’t rise to the top because it won’t have the reputational authority.
What AI is looking for is structured, reinforced, multi-channel credibility, which is the kind that comes from a system, not a one-off content win.
These myths hold teams back from thinking systemically, and they keep organizations chasing one-off wins instead of building long-term reputation results. Instead, you need a framework that serves as your marketing operation system, so you can stop chasing credibility and start scaling it.
Turning Trust Into a System
If there’s one thing these myths make clear, it’s this: too many teams are still treating trust like a side effect of good content or media coverage. But in the generative search era, that approach doesn’t hold up.
Trust isn’t something you sprinkle on top of your efforts and hope for the best. It’s not earned by volume, luck, or clever headlines. It’s built through consistency, reinforced by credibility, and scaled by design.
And that kind of trust, the kind machines can model and humans can feel, requires infrastructure. It requires a system that helps you show up with authority, signal expertise across channels, and turn reputation into a competitive edge.
The brands that will win in this new landscape aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or loudest voices. They’re the ones that operate like trust is their product and build systems to support it at scale.
So what does that system look like? That’s exactly where we’re headed next.
In the second part of this series, we’ll explore how the PESO Model serves as your trust-building engine. Plus, we’ll break down six specific ways to put it into action, so you’re not just creating content or chasing credibility, but actually operationalizing trust across the entire customer journey.
Stay tuned!
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