Trust in AI?
Updated: Sep 30
There’s a lot of talk around how website traffic is changing, especially the way AI search is affecting the way people interact with your website. As a Wix Partner, we read with interest a recent Wix report based on 2026 data which highlights this change but makes some interesting discoveries.
It’s certainly true that AI is changing how people discover brands, with AI agents such as ChatGPT starting to eat into Google’s dominance as the place to go to get answers to your questions. But from the report data it seems that there is still an issue of trust. Even when AI gives a person a solution, they still seem to be following this up by visiting websites directly to check if a business is legitimate and worth trusting. Despite AI being responsible for a four-fold increase in website traffic between 2024 and 2025, this still accounts for less than 1% with most website traffic still being direct.
And trust is still built the same way it always was: a professional domain, consistent content, and proof that other people have had a good experience. Sites with more than 50 reviews get on average 24 times more traffic than those with fewer, and sites with more than 50 blog posts get 7 times more monthly sessions than sites without.
AI means speed—but it also means scepticism. Customers need to know a business is real, trustworthy, and not a scam. The way you prove that is through trustworthy content, happy customers, and a website that still has a human touch.
In addition, with AI tools now offering to build your site for you and the average time to publish being halved in the last 12 months, it is interesting to note from the report that 91% of people who used an AI tool to create their website in 2026, then went on to change what AI had done for them.
In conclusion, when it comes to your business, AI is starting to be a very powerful tool in raising your brand awareness, but it is not mature enough just yet to be entirely trusted. As has always been he case, your small business website needs:
to be built using current best practice techniques and design trends, compliant with current user psychology and behaviour patterns, and optimised for discovery by search engines AND the AI agents.
to be populated by regular content from you - the person that knows your business better than anyone else.