Salesforce announced on the 15th that it has released the 'State of the AI Connected Customer' report, which analyzes the impact of utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) on consumer trust and the key challenges of successful utilization.
This report is based on a research survey conducted with over 16,500 consumers and business buyers across 18 countries. According to the report, 71% of all respondents indicated that their trust in corporations has decreased compared to a year ago, and the trust in ethical artificial intelligence (AI) utilization has dropped by 16 percentage points to 42% compared to the previous year.
In contrast, personalized services have improved, with 73% of respondents evaluating that corporations understand their characteristics, which is a 34 percentage point increase from the previous year. However, the percentage of those who believe that data utilization by corporations is beneficial to them has fallen to 49%, while the sensitivity regarding personal data protection has increased to 71%. This suggests that maintaining a balance between data utilization and personal data protection is a major challenge for corporations.
Respondents pointed out that to enhance corporate trust, transparency in AI utilization (42%), human verification of outcomes (35%), strengthening user control (32%), and explainability of outcomes (31%) are necessary, and 71% stated that AI outcomes should be verified by humans.
The long-term outlook for AI was positive. 49% of respondents expect that AI will possess human-level capabilities within the next 10 years, especially Generation Z and Millennials evaluated autonomous AI agents positively. Of these, 43% reported that customer experience has improved through AI agents. However, there remains a clear tendency to prefer interaction with humans in specialized areas, such as medical consultations (44%) or financial decisions (58%).
Sohn Boo-han, representative of Salesforce Korea, noted that "the ethical and transparent use of AI by corporations is becoming a key element for securing trust and competitiveness" and added, "Salesforce will do its utmost for ethical AI utilization and personal data protection to innovate customer experience based on trust."