First off - what actually is brand sentiment? In simple terms, it is how people feel about your brand. Not whether they have seen it, but whether they trust it, like it, feel sceptical about it, or would choose it over someone else.
And when it comes to AI, those feelings are getting harder to ignore. There’s a lot of noise around what consumers think about AI, whether it’s a KPMG report or customers tearing apart AI ads on Instagram.
AI is now an inescapable part of brand marketing, whether that means awareness activity, visibility, customer experience or the wider way brands build familiarity and trust.
Marketers need to understand the impact AI can have on brand sentiment, for better or worse, beyond the Marmite narrative that people either love it or fear it. In reality, the picture is far more commercially interesting than that. Consumers are not rejecting AI outright, but they are taking a more measured view, judging it on usefulness, visibility, trust and, ultimately, whether it makes a brand feel more or less credible.
Brand sentiment around AI is not really about the technology itself, but more about how brands choose to use it. Adobe’s latest research found that 43% of customers would be willing to try a brand’s AI personal concierge or agent, which tells us the appetite is there when the value is clear.
So instead of asking whether your customers like AI, a better question is: what happens to brand sentiment when people can feel its presence, whether the brand has disclosed it clearly or not?
One of the clearest patterns in the data is that brand sentiment towards AI is not consistent across markets.
KPMG and the University of Melbourne found that people in emerging economies are more likely to adopt, trust and accept AI, and feel more optimistic about it overall.
That pattern also shows up elsewhere. Stanford HAI’s 2026 AI Index found that more than 80% of respondents in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore expect AI to profoundly change their lives over the next three to five years.
In other markets, the mood is much more cautious. YouGov found that consumers in France, Britain, Canada and Italy are among the most likely to feel uncomfortable with brands using AI in advertising across a range of use cases.
It’s a mixed picture in the US, too: SurveyMonkey says four in five Americans strongly prefer interacting with a human over an AI agent in customer service.
So one of the few things we can say with confidence is that there’s no single consumer view on brands using AI. As with a lot in marketing, sentiment is shaped by culture, trust and how comfortable, or uncomfortable, people already feel.
Consumers are often far more pragmatic than the AI debate gives them credit for.
Rather than asking whether a brand is using AI at all, they are asking whether it improves the experience enough to justify its presence.
Adobe’s research shows people are open to AI-supported experiences where convenience is obvious, while Capgemini found that 63% of consumers want generative AI to provide hyper-personalised content and recommendations based on their preferences.
In other words, AI has to earn its place. If the use of AI feels lazy, misleading or over-automated, people switch off. If it creates a better experience, that is a different story.
If there is one theme that comes through consistently, it’s transparency.
Capgemini found that 71% of consumers are worried about the lack of clarity around how generative AI collects and uses their data, while 67% expect brands to clearly inform them when they are shown AI-generated advertising. The same report also found that 76% want the ability to set boundaries for when a digital assistant acts on their behalf.
Consumers may already be using ChatGPT for quick questions or interacting with AI without realising it on their social feeds, but they are expecting more from brands: they want to know when AI is present, what it’s doing, and whether they still have control.
When those things are unclear, sentiment can shift very quickly. So while brands may be drawn to the speed and scale AI promises, they cannot lose sight of whether customers still feel informed and respected.
This is where things get sharper for marketing teams. EMARKETER reports that when consumers notice AI-generated content in brand marketing, they are four times more likely to trust the brand less.
Capgemini adds another useful point: awareness of ‘synthetic influencers’ (computer-generated personas powered by AI) is now widespread at 66%, yet trust in them remains low at 52%.
That should make brands pause. When AI becomes visible as filler, imitation or low-effort content, it starts working directly against the things brand-building relies on most: credibility, distinctiveness and emotional connection.
Overall, consumers seem relatively comfortable with AI when it is used for speed and convenience, but they become far less comfortable when interactions start feeling too automated.
Adobe found that only 19% of customers want a future where AI agents become their primary way of interacting with brands, and 8x8 found that 83% of consumers still prefer speaking to a real person.
So, while AI can absolutely support customer experience, the human layer still carries a lot of the emotional weight, especially in moments that call for reassurance, nuance or trust.
This is where some brands will get caught out. They will assume that because AI can handle more, it should. Consumers are signalling something much more cautious than that.
Not all AI use lands in the same way. Consumers may be relatively open to AI behind the scenes, especially where it improves convenience, recommendations or routine support, but they are much less forgiving when AI starts shaping visible brand expression in ways that feel synthetic or unearned.
YouGov found that around half of international consumers are uncomfortable with brands using AI to create virtual ambassadors or generate and edit imagery for advertising.
And that’s the real brand lesson: AI that reduces friction and improves the experience can strengthen sentiment, but damage starts setting in once interactions feel more robotic than human, or more efficient than thoughtful.
Consumers are not scoring brands on whether they use AI at all - they are scoring them on whether that use feels responsible, clear, useful and appropriate to the moment.
For brands, that means being transparent - keeping a human hand on anything that shapes tone, trust or brand perception, and not assuming efficiency matters to your audience if the output feels like it came straight from ChatGPT.
Essentially, consumers do not hate AI. They hate poorly used AI.
If you need a framework for adopting and measuring AI in your business, download The Practical Guide to AI Adoption in 2026.