{"id":10365,"date":"2026-09-09T19:44:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/09\/announcing-the-2026-ai-sentiment-report-how-end-users-feel-about-ai-agents\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T19:44:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:44:02","slug":"announcing-the-2026-ai-sentiment-report-how-end-users-feel-about-ai-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/09\/announcing-the-2026-ai-sentiment-report-how-end-users-feel-about-ai-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"Announcing \u2018The 2026 AI Sentiment Report\u2019: How end users feel about AI Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Businesses are earning trust in AI by accident. It should be earned on purpose.<\/p>\n

People become more accepting of AI the more they use it, but acceptance that\u2019s built on mere exposure is passive. Businesses may benefit, but they\u2019ve often done nothing to earn it.<\/p>\n

Our latest research<\/a> shows people\u2019s sentiment toward AI is higher than it was last year, and they believe the technology\u2019s become more capable. Trust is also rising, but it\u2019s more conditional.<\/p>\n

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Download the 2026 AI Sentiment Report<\/em><\/a> \u2192<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For most people, how much they\u2019re willing to trust AI depends on what they\u2019re asking it to do. For queries that are nuanced or emotionally charged, full trust still needs to be earned.<\/p>\n

But we also found that trust isn\u2019t fixed. Businesses can design customer experiences that earn user trust. In The 2026 AI Sentiment Report<\/em>, we explore how.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at our findings.<\/p>\n

Sentiment is warming, but trust is still conditional<\/h2>\n

End users are feeling more positive than last year about interacting with an AI Agent for customer service.<\/p>\n

Forty-nine percent of people described having positive overall experiences with AI \u2013 up nine percentage points from 2025.<\/p>\n

Halfway through our survey, we showed each respondent a short video of an AI Agent resolving a real customer query, then asked the same set of questions a second time. This let us measure both how people feel about AI in the abstract, and how that changes when they watch it work.<\/p>\n

Once they saw the AI Agent in action resolving a query, the number of people who felt positively about it jumped to 74%.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But feeling good about the technology isn\u2019t the same as trusting it, and people\u2019s trust is still conditional.<\/p>\n

Complexity is where trust needs to be earned, but \u201ccomplex\u201d can mean different things<\/h2>\n

Fifty-four percent of end users say they\u2019d trust AI to handle simple or routine issues, but not complex ones.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But \u201ccomplex\u201d can mean different things. Many people have concerns about whether AI can apply discretion in the same way a human can, what happens to their personal information once they hand it over to an Agent, and whether the Agent can reliably keep track of everything they\u2019ve shared with it across a multi-part conversation.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting is that end users worry more about how AI will resolve their problem, not whether it\u2019s capable of providing them with an accurate answer.<\/p>\n

People worry AI won\u2019t own its mistakes or use judgment<\/h2>\n

When we dug deeper into why people wouldn\u2019t trust an Agent, they had two distinct concerns about its behavior \u2013 whether it can take accountability for its actions, and if it can exercise the same judgment and flexibility as humans when handling more nuanced problems.<\/p>\n

End users have the perception that AI Agents operate in a silo. They worry that whatever happens in a conversation stays there, with no human team managing or watching over it in the background. They\u2019re looking for reassurance that the Agent is accountable to someone for its answers, decisions, or mistakes, and that a human is easily accessible if they need one.<\/p>\n

They also assume that AI can\u2019t flex and use judgment in the way humans can. They worry that an Agent will always stick to policy and process, even when the situation calls for an exception.<\/p>\n

When asked what would make them feel more comfortable trusting an Agent to resolve their queries, end users\u2019 top two choices were \u201ceasy escalation to a human when needed\u201d and \u201cbeing told upfront [they\u2019re] interacting with AI, not a human.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Every channel comes with its own expectations of trust<\/h2>\n

Trust in AI varies from channel to channel. People are most willing to fully trust AI to resolve queries when engaging with it over chat \u2013 the channel they are most familiar with for AI-powered support interactions. They\u2019re least willing to fully trust it on social channels, where they\u2019re more accustomed to interacting directly with humans.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Phone is the most polarizing channel of all. The reasons for this are influenced by how comfortable people are with AI. Some end users who never use AI find talking to an Agent frustrating, while others who use the technology daily or almost daily often prefer it when an Agent picks up their call.<\/p>\n

Beyond support, people ask \u2018whose side is AI on?\u2019<\/h2>\n

Extending AI to other use cases like shopping introduces a new question of trust: \u201cwhose side is it on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some end users have concerns that AI shopping assistants prioritize the business\u2019s financial goals over what\u2019s best suited to their needs. As one respondent said: \u201cAutomatically, I am under the assumption that the AI helping me is programmed to consider the company\u2019s bottom line and not what is in my best interest.\u201d Another raised concerns that they might only be directed towards certain products: \u201cMy biggest hesitation is that the AI Agent may be programmed to be biased toward certain products and purchasing decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This concern over where the Agent\u2019s allegiance lies means businesses have to work to reassure people that the technology is on their side.<\/p>\n

Treat trust as a design problem<\/h2>\n

The through-line of this research is that while end users\u2019 sentiment toward AI is warming and they trust it more than ever before, that trust is still conditional.<\/p>\n

But trust can be built, and the levers to do it are all in your control. In this year\u2019s report, we take a closer look at how to use each lever to design for end-user trust.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Businesses are earning trust in AI by accident. It should be earned on purpose. People become more accepting of AI the more they use it, but acceptance that\u2019s built on mere exposure is passive. Businesses may benefit, but they\u2019ve often done nothing to earn it. Our latest research shows people\u2019s sentiment toward AI is higher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handoli.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}