Will AI-generated content make trust more valuable?

Trust is going to be in such high demand, because there's going to be an overflow of pipes of information. I've been saying some version of that since 2025, in podcast episodes and on calls, and I believe it more now.

Why would AI make trust scarcer?

Image models have crossed the point where fakes are indistinguishable from real. Once that happens, verification online collapses, and proof moves to physical presence.

"When people can't trust anything they see on their computers or phones, they'll only trust things they know are real, things they saw in person."

Most people haven't caught on yet. They've heard about it, but they still trust what they see. That's going to flip: you'll assume things are fake unless somebody proves they're real. My guess is regular people figure this out by the end of 2026. Normal people aren't ready for how little they'll be able to trust what they've trusted their whole lives, and I think it's going to be shocking.

I'm in AI every day and I can't always tell. I made a song on Suno in about a minute and it was so good I wanted it in my own playlist. My Spotify recommendations already have AI artists in them that I can't pick out.

The other side of it is volume. AI is going to push trust toward zero for most things and make the competition for attention 100 or 1,000 times bigger. When everyone's overwhelmed, they fall back to a few brands and people they trust to be their filter.

I already do this on Twitter. Every two seconds there's another AI tool I should try. It's good stuff, but it's overwhelming, so I close it and go listen to the handful of people I trust. A local brand can be that filter for a town.

How will people check that someone is real?

The same way they always have: shake their hand. For anybody outside your own circle, the best proof is talking to them for 10 minutes in person. That's exactly what local operators are set up for.

A reader can think, this isn't some avatar tricking me. I can go to the event he's hosting at six, talk to him, and see if he's legit. Going to see the person is how you know they're not a robot.

My conclusion: everything in business goes more local, and local newsletters are just a subset of local everything getting bigger. I also think AI search will hurt a lot of national businesses while local search is less exposed, which makes local an even better place to be. As the AI wave grows, the local wave grows with it. By being in local media, you're riding the AI wave.

Do readers actually notice AI content?

Some do, and they care. I made a fun local song with Suno and people reacted like trust had been violated. Two guests on my podcast separately said local readers can tell when a newsletter is AI-written. One reads local newsletters because he knows locals write them. Another said new entrants in his market look AI-written and not based in the city.

Ken Jee told me on my podcast that he pulled Meta ads that looked AI-made after readers commented on them. He now pays about $1 a subscriber instead of 50 to 70 cents.

Those are anecdotes, with no unsubscribe counts behind them. I still treat detectable AI on anything a reader sees as a real cost.

Does that mean a local brand shouldn't use AI?

No. Use AI on the back end for your systems and processes, and be as human as possible on the front end. That's the gold, for B2B or B2C. Let AI do the grunt work, then put the personal touch, flavor and humor on top. We throw funny memes in the newsletter because people like humor, personality and other people, and AI can't replicate that.

Everything is going to be AI. The question readers will ask is whether a vetted person or business stands behind it and is making sure it's right and good.

What should a local brand do about it?

• Be a personality, not just a content feed. If all you do is curate, your AI newsletter is interchangeable with anybody else's. Who cares? A personality-led one is different, because readers follow a person.
• Show up everywhere as a real person. Post on social about what you're doing in town, host in-person events, start a local podcast. AI won't replace those, and they become way more valuable.
• Feature real local people. Interviews, profiles, a member of the week. AI isn't going to go out and feature your neighbors, and people want to see themselves in the media.
• Publish first-person content. If AI content is infinite, what isn't infinite is a human explaining their own experience and plans. That's why I offer local business owners free interviews that my form software turns into a page with key takeaways.
• Let sponsors share expertise. An expert column builds more trust than a basic ad. Ken Jee says his partnered expert column is his number-one sponsorship slot.
• Distrust plans that raise volume without raising verifiability. They run against where this is heading.

"People will know that you're a real person. You'll always be able to be that real person commenting, hosting events, being in person, filming things like that. AI will not be able to fake that. I would actually put it as not just AI proof, but it's AI positive."

All of my brands are creator-led for this reason. We're humans posting about what we do in the community, in the newsletter and on Instagram. When everything's AI and nobody trusts anything, that's the problem we're solving. Personal brands ride the same wave: as AI floods categories like astrology with generic output, a recognizable person becomes the scarce asset.

Won't AI inbox summaries make newsletters pointless?

Only bad ones. If Gmail summarizes your inbox and pulls the two lines that matter out of a newsletter, that's probably great for readers of newsletters that aren't very good. If you're building a real brand, I don't care if it got summarized in two sentences. If I live there, I want to read the thing.

I also expect the format to get harder eventually. Newsletters will be great for quite a long time, but years down the road it'll be tougher, so you adapt. If there's a new platform, you move to it. People will still follow people they know, like and trust.

Is it too late to build local trust?

In 2025 I told people, you think you're late, but you're early. If you're hyper aware of local newsletters and everything local, you're in a small group. That isn't true of 99% of people.

By early 2026 I was adding a warning: you're still early, but the window is closing. Start now, while people can begin following and liking you, before loads of competition shows up. In 2025 I also said AI couldn't yet tell you what to do with the kids on a Saturday night in your town. It probably will be good at that at some point.

Building local trust deeply also buys optionality. The local connections, local knowledge and local trust stay valuable even if a particular media business doesn't work out.

How I split AI and human work inside my own business is in how to use AI without losing the human touch. Why I put a real person at the front of every brand is in who should be the face of a local newsletter.