Survey Finds Just One in Four Trust Business Leaders on AI

Roughly one in four people trust business leaders, according to a new global report from Fair Play Talks, and the growing rollout of artificial intelligence inside companies is widening the gap between institutions and the public that once believed in them.

The report, titled "Just One in Four People Trust Business Leaders as AI Adds to Global Trust Gap," frames the finding as part of a broader erosion of confidence in the people who run companies, with AI adoption acting as an accelerant rather than a cause. According to the report, growing skepticism centers on how companies deploy AI systems and how clearly they explain the technology's effect on workers.

What did the survey find about trust in business leaders?

The headline figure is stark: about one in four people — roughly 25% — say they trust business leaders, per Fair Play Talks. That means close to three in four respondents do not extend that trust, a gap the report ties directly to how companies are perceived to be handling AI-driven change inside their workforces. The report does not attribute the low trust figure to any single cause, but it links the erosion specifically to AI deployment and the communication gap that has opened around it.

How is AI widening the trust gap?

According to the report, AI adoption is not simply one factor among many eroding institutional trust — it is actively widening the gap between institutions and the public. The report's framing suggests that as companies move faster to adopt AI tools than they move to explain those tools to employees and customers, the resulting information vacuum feeds skepticism. That dynamic mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere in workplace-AI coverage: technology adoption outpacing organizational communication about what the technology does, who it affects, and how decisions get made once it is in place.

Why does communication about AI matter to workers?

The Fair Play Talks report ties its trust findings to workers' concerns about how AI affects their jobs, not just abstract skepticism about corporate leadership in general. Separate reporting on workplace AI dynamics has examined the emotional dimension of that shift — how employees process uncertainty about AI-driven changes to their roles, and how organizations talk, or fail to talk, about those changes as they happen, according to HTT News. Taken together, the two threads point to a consistent theme: trust erodes fastest not when AI is introduced, but when its introduction is not explained.

What are companies being asked to change?

The report does not lay out a specific policy prescription, but its framing — trust falling as AI deployment rises — implies that closing the gap requires clearer, more direct communication from leadership about how AI systems are being used and what effect they have on employees. That reading is consistent with how the emotional-dynamics reporting frames the issue: organizations that acknowledge uncertainty and explain AI's role tend to face a different reception than those that roll out tools without explanation.

Trust Gap by the Numbers

• About 25% of people say they trust business leaders, per Fair Play Talks.
• That leaves roughly 75% — three in four people — who do not extend that trust, according to the same report.

What to Watch

• Whether Fair Play Talks or similar trackers publish country-by-country or sector-by-sector breakdowns of the trust figure.
• Whether companies cited in AI-adoption coverage change how they communicate AI rollouts to employees.
• Whether the trust gap narrows or widens in future survey waves as AI tools become more embedded in day-to-day work.
• Whether regulators or industry groups respond to the communication gap the report identifies.

The original report is available via Fair Play Talks.

Does the report compare trust across institutions?

Fair Play Talks frames the roughly one-in-four figure specifically around business leaders rather than institutions broadly, and the report does not publish comparable trust scores for government, media, or other sectors in the material reviewed. That narrower focus is deliberate, according to the report's title and framing: the finding is meant to isolate how AI deployment inside companies is shaping perceptions of the executives making those decisions, rather than to rank business leaders against other categories of public trust. Readers looking for a broader trust index, or historical trend lines showing whether the 25% figure represents a decline from prior years, will not find those comparisons in the report as described.

That limitation matters for how the finding should be read. A single trust figure, without a baseline or a multi-year trend, shows where confidence stands now but not how fast it has moved or in which direction the trajectory is heading. Fair Play Talks ties the number to AI adoption as an explanatory factor, but the report does not isolate AI from other contributors to institutional distrust, such as economic conditions or unrelated corporate controversies, in the source material available.