The Decline of Trust: How Organizations Can Foster Authenticity and Community
Key Highlights
- Edelman’s latest trust barometer points to soaring economic anxiety and declining optimism as forces of fissure among many colleagues and clients.
- To build resilient brands, marketers should ensure their storytelling methods radiate authenticity and credibility, according to leaders and researchers.
- Ambassadors can help embody these values as humanly as possible.
Edelman minced no words: Trust is down. It’s the key finding from the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, which the global PR firm unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.
Worldwide, seven in 10 people are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values, understandings or backgrounds, according to the research, which encompasses survey data from nearly 34,000 respondents spanning 28 countries.
“Over the past five years, we have seen a descent from fear to polarization to grievance and now to insularity,” said Richard Edelman, the firm’s CEO, in a press release. “People are retreating from dialogue and compromise, choosing the safety of the familiar over the perceived risk of change.”
As people withdraw to “smaller, familiar circles that reflect their views,” economic and societal progress hang in the balance, the researchers write. For businesses, this rise in insularity can translate to difficulty selling in key markets, cause rifts in the workplace when people refuse to work with colleagues who hold different views, and fuel skepticism of technologies meant to drive innovation, Edelman said in his video announcement of the report.
For marketers, the mandate is clear: Build a brand that’s strong enough to withstand growing scrutiny.
“In a world where anything can now be faked, credibility will become the last true differentiator,” Christine White, senior vice president of external affairs and marketing at Shedd Aquarium, said in the American Marketing Association’s 2026 Future Trends in Marketing Report. “Marketing will need to evolve from storytelling to proof design: creating systems of trust that are demonstrable, portable and interoperable across platforms.”
Brands can no longer rely on awareness or image alone. They must earn credibility through transparency, participation and cultural fluency.
Building trust
Over the past five years, Edelman researchers have found that trust in people and institutions has been most shaken by inflation, proliferating misinformation, the COVID-19 pandemic, trade wars and the growing use of generative AI.
Today’s rising tide of insularity, meanwhile, stems from forces such as soaring economic anxiety and declining optimism. Since 2012, the gap in trust between high- and low-income groups has more than doubled globally. Over half (54%) of low-income — and nearly as many middle-income respondents (44%) — believe that GenAI will replace rather than benefit them. Less than a third of survey takers (32%) believe the next generation will be better off.
Bleak as it all sounds, researchers say organizations can help turn the tide by becoming trust brokers. “Rather than trying to change people, trust brokering surfaces the common interests of insulated parties and translates their needs, goals, and realities for one another,” they write.
Open-mindedness, transparency and helpfulness are common reasons respondents cited for trusting someone different from them. When asked how businesses could likewise build trust between divided parties, survey takers pointed to activities like encouraging people to cooperate on finding solutions without taking a side; supporting a position that’s true to the brand’s values; creating in-office opportunities for people to interact with others who are different from them; and striking unlikely partnerships to initiate cross-cultural or cross-political conversations.
The AMA cosigns this focus on fostering community. “Brands can no longer rely on awareness or image alone,” its researchers write. “They must earn credibility through transparency, participation and cultural fluency.”
The association recommends that marketers map emerging digital communities in their industry to understand their base’s specific language, rituals, values and polarization patterns. Leaders can “build operational resilience” by creating a trust ecosystem featuring crisis simulations, misinformation monitoring and auditable authentication options. “Track trust equity as a core KPI alongside traditional metrics,” the association advises.
It’s worth noting that the Edelman findings don’t resonate with everyone. The report is a commercial tool published by a PR firm with (some controversial) clients spanning sectors. And it doesn’t fully reflect the lived experience of leaders like Steven Loewy, VP of marketing at Marq, a brand management software company. Loewy says his colleagues are collaborating well and tend to keep political talk to a minimum at work.
Though stakeholders have varying views on how much companies should wade into political and social waters, the AMA recommends understanding which issues “align authentically with your brand values and core communities,” and recognizing that “any position risks alienating segments while silence may signal complicity.”
Marketing will need to evolve from storytelling to proof design: creating systems of trust that are demonstrable, portable and interoperable across platforms.
Being human
Of the Edelman report’s wide-ranging themes, Loewy is laser-focused on one. “Everybody just has this antenna that’s like, ‘Oh, is that really from the brand, or is that AI?’” he explains. “It’s eroding that trust.” The antidote, he says, is authenticity.
Rather than trotting out polished corporate speak, he’s helping his organization cultivate a voice that’s unequivocally human. He points to the content personalization platform Mutiny as an example of a brand that’s embodying authenticity. “A lot of it has a sense of humor to it,” he says. “The brands that are going to have the most success [are] the brands that can stay true to their core but tell their stories in new ways.”
AMA echoes this stance, advising brands to create “flexible narratives that adapt to different identity ecosystems while staying anchored in a consistent core.” Ambassadors “who already belong to the communities your brand serves” can help.
It’s a strategy Loewy is trying out firsthand.
As part of Marq’s recent brand refresh, he’s embedded “humanity” and “authenticity” into the company’s ethos and is rolling out “very strong guidelines” for how team members can show up and rep the company on social media, such as avoiding overtly political content and tying content to expertise.
Loewy is incentivizing these values through initiatives like a recently launched social media contest, in which team members were trained on LinkedIn best practices and then let loose. The person who gets the most impressions by the end of the quarter will win a cash prize and kudos in company-wide meetings.
“That is very deliberate,” Loewy says, because it’s setting the stage for stronger social returns in six months, when Marq is planning to launch its next product. “We want [team members] to establish their own following so that when we do have something more important to say, … they’ve established a larger audience for them to communicate those pieces to.”
In the meantime, he’s helping his colleagues develop a taste for quality over quantity. “Do less, better,” he says. “You can use AI to produce a lot of content, but we would rather have less good authentic content versus just more stuff out in the ether.”
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About the Author
Delaney Rebernik
Contributor
Delaney Rebernik is an independent journalist covering leadership, death, and digital life, and a writer and consultant for purpose-driven organizations. She’s also Design Observer’s Executive Editor. As an award-winning editorial and communications leader, Delaney helps media brands, memberships, and other champions of community, knowledge, and justice tell vital stories and advance worthy missions.
In her spare time, Delaney consumes horror and musical theater in equal measure. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband Todd and pup Spud, named for her favorite food. Learn more at delaneyrebernik.com, and connect on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
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