As Trust Contracts, Expertise Matters More
- Beth Thompson
- May 14
- 5 min read
What the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer and Joel Harrison’s B2B trust analysis suggest about AI, expertise, and specialist markets
By Beth Thompson
There is no shortage of commentary on automation. Every week seems to bring a new claim about speed, scale, efficiency, and transformation. Much of that is true. What interests me more is something quieter, and perhaps more consequential: what happens to trust when systems become faster than judgment?
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer suggests that trust is not simply declining. It is changing shape. Business is now the most trusted institution globally at 64%, ahead of NGOs at 58%, media at 54%, and government at 53%. At the same time, Edelman reports that 7 in 10 people worldwide have what it calls an “insular trust mindset,” meaning they are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who is different from them. The report also describes a movement “From We to Me,” in which trust shifts away from large shared institutions and toward smaller, more immediate circles such as family, coworkers, employers, and CEOs.
For those of us working in luxury, specialist services, sourcing, and B2B, that combination is worth reading carefully.
It suggests that trust is becoming more selective, more relational, and more dependent on direct confidence in the person, institution, or company closest to a decision. Prestige still matters. Reputation still matters. But they may no longer be sufficient on their own. In many specialist markets, the client is not only buying a product or service. The client is also buying judgment, continuity, discretion, and the assurance that someone competent is standing behind what is being offered.
A narrower trust economy
One of the most striking aspects of the Edelman Trust Barometer is not only where trust remains strong, but where it is moving.
Among those who say recent societal events have affected their trust in others, confidence has risen in neighbors, family and friends, coworkers, and CEOs, while declining in national government leaders, major news organizations, and foreign business leaders. Edelman also reports that 95% of respondents say major societal events over the past five years have affected their trust in people or institutions.
This suggests a contraction in the radius of trust itself.
In practical terms, clients may become less persuaded by broad claims and more persuaded by experience, proximity, and accountability. Trust becomes less abstract. It becomes attached to the visible conduct of identifiable people and businesses over time.
AI enters a low-trust environment
AI is often discussed as though it were arriving into a neutral commercial world. It is not.
The Edelman data points to a climate shaped by economic uncertainty, misinformation, geopolitical tension, and a broader turn inward. In related findings on artificial intelligence, many lower-income respondents in major markets said that people like them are more likely to be left behind by generative AI than to benefit from it. That matters because AI is not only a technology story. It is also a trust story.
AI can improve research, communication, speed, and service systems. Used well, it can remove friction and improve access to information. What it does not do is assume responsibility. It does not absorb the cost of poor judgment. It does not stand behind a recommendation when a client is making a difficult decision under pressure, against a deadline, or with imperfect information.
In specialist and high-value markets, that distinction matters.
Joel Harrison’s B2B warning
Joel Harrison’s recent work on trust in B2B helps clarify the issue. He has written that trust has never been harder to attain or retain, and he argues that trust is now the defining B2B marketing challenge of the decade.
That analysis feels persuasive because it places trust inside a wider environment of cynicism, weakened authority, proliferating channels, and AI-generated communication. Visibility can be scaled. Credibility cannot.
Harrison is also right to distinguish thought leadership from simple content production. Real thought leadership is not a matter of publishing more. It is strategic, evidence-led, and sustained across the customer journey. In a fragile trust environment, insight cannot be episodic. The article, the sales conversation, the recommendation, the delivery, and the standard behind them all have to belong to the same professional logic.
Otherwise, the rhetoric outruns the reality.
What this means for luxury and B2B
Luxury is often discussed in terms of rarity, craftsmanship, image, and heritage. All of these still matter. But the Edelman Trust Barometer suggests that trust itself may be becoming one of the most decisive forms of value in luxury and B2B.
That is because many high-value purchases depend on more than the object being bought. They also depend on confidence in sourcing, expertise, discretion, and judgment. In some cases, what is being purchased is not only the material or service, but the reassurance that someone knowledgeable and accountable remains visible behind it.
For competitors and colleagues across specialist markets, this raises a worthwhile question. Are we treating trust as a message, or as an operating principle? Are we using AI to assist judgment, or to simulate it? Are we building authority through standards and conduct, or only through visibility?
Those questions are becoming harder to avoid.
Trust as a business condition
One of the most useful ideas in the Edelman report is “trust brokering.” The report describes it as a set of practices that counters insularity by helping people navigate difference rather than pretending difference does not exist. That matters because it shifts the discussion away from slogans and toward behavior.
In uncertain markets, trust may depend less on broad promises and more on disciplined conduct. Less on projection, more on proof. Less on performance, more on the presence of discernment.
At its best, luxury has always understood something like this. In specialist sectors, the same principle holds. What matters is not simply that something appears desirable, but that it stands up to scrutiny, that it has been considered properly, and that someone accountable remains behind it.
Closing reflection
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer is not a luxury report, and Joel Harrison is writing from a B2B trust perspective rather than from my own field. Even so, their arguments converge in an important way.
In a market shaped by insularity, uncertainty, automation, and information overload, trust becomes harder to extend, more important to protect, and more closely tied to lived evidence of expertise.
That may be one of the defining business realities of the AI era.
Beth Thompson is the founder of Lux Symbolica, a Paris-based B2B rare hair curation and sourcing service operating at the intersection of professional expertise, forensic science standards, and the luxury supply chain.
Professional enquiries by authorization only.
© 2026 Lux Symbolica SASU
Sources:
2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report
Joel Harrison - https://www.joelharrisonb2b.com/podcast/
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