2024 Connected Consumer: Trust and gen AI

There are notable generational differences around trust: Thirty-four percent of Gen Zs and millennials say they have high or very high trust that device makers will protect their data, compared with just 20% of older consumers. On average, 27% of Gen Zs and millennials report high or very high trust in application providers and online service providers. But just 12% of older consumers say the same. Convincing older consumers to purchase and make greater use of digital technologies (such as GPS tracker watches, fall detection, smart lights, home monitoring systems) could depend partly on earning greater trust. Gender differences are also significant: Thirty-one percent of men trust device makers, versus 22% of women. Twenty-four percent and 22% of men trust application providers and online service providers, respectively—compared with just 15% and 13% of women. With women controlling or influencing an estimated 85% of consumer spending, tech companies should work to builder greater trust among this powerful cohort.¹⁷

Building trust may depend at least partially on improving the transparency of tech companies’ data privacy and security policies, as well as making it easier for consumers to control their personal data. As consumers go about their digital activities—interacting with tech devices like smartphones, smart watches, and smart home gadgets, as well as engaging with apps and services such as e-commerce sites and social media networks—they’re constantly revealing personal information, such as location, behavior, purchasing preferences, social contacts, and demographics. When asked to reflect on their tech providers’ data privacy and security policies, 79% say those policies are not very clear—that their device makers, app providers, and online service providers don’t make it very easy to understand what data they collect and how they use, share, and protect it. Further, 79% feel it’s not very easy to control the data that their tech providers collect about them, such as limiting what gets collected and saved, and customizing how it may be used.

There’s room for tech providers to improve both the transparency of their data policies and the ease of controlling user data—and a potentially big upside when it comes to trust. As figure 16 illustrates, 26% of our survey respondents feel that their tech providers supply clear data privacy and security policies and make it easy for them to control their data. Fifty-two percent of that cohort report high or very high trust that their tech providers will keep their data secure, and only 10% report low or very low trust. In contrast, 44% of respondents rate their tech providers’ data privacy and security policies as unclear and feel that it’s difficult to control their data. Only 5% of this cohort reports having high or very trust in their tech providers, while 52% report low or very low trust.