Wednesday 24 June 2026 7:30 am | Updated: Monday 29 June 2026 9:56 am

Over Half of Consumers Will Pay More for Brands That Are Transparent About AI Data Use, New Usercentrics Research Finds

AI transparency has become a commercial differentiator, and it’s reshaping where brand revenue is won — or lost.

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Over half (52%) of consumers globally will pay more for brands that are transparent about how they use AI with their data at an average 7% premium. In Germany, that figure rises to 73% of consumers willing to pay a 9% premium, the highest of any market.

The finding comes from the second annual State of Digital Trust 2026 Report, commissioned by Usercentrics, a leading data privacy technology company, and conducted by Sapio Research across 11,000 consumers in seven markets.

The opportunity for brands that act is matched by the cost of inaction. Almost half (47%) of consumers surveyed have taken at least one action with a direct revenue consequence in the past six months because of concerns about how their data was being used in AI — canceling a subscription, switching to a competitor, or reducing their spend. For a brand with one million customers, that translates to up to 240,000 purchase-affecting decisions in six months driven entirely by AI data concerns.

The actions consumers are taking are concrete:

35% have taken two or more of these actions — canceled, switched to a competitor, or reduced spend
24% avoided trying a new product from that brand
20% switched to a competitor they believed handled AI data more responsibly
20% reduced their spending
31% warned friends and family or complained publicly

“Consumers are making purchasing decisions based on how brands handle their data, and over half are willing to pay more to the ones that get it right. The brands that move first won’t just earn the premium. They’ll earn a category position that’s almost impossible to compete against once it’s established,” said Tilman Harmeling, Strategy & Market Intelligence, Usercentrics.

Why 2026 is different

Three forces have collided in the past 12 months to accelerate consumer decision-making on AI data.

AI has moved from answering questions to taking actions. Agentic AI now accesses financial accounts, calendars, and customer records on behalf of users, raising the stakes of data misuse in ways consumers directly feel.

Privacy regulation is expanding faster than at any point since GDPR, with the EU AI Act in active enforcement, over twenty US states operating distinct privacy laws, and UK regulators publishing an agentic AI governance paper in March 2026.

Consumers have crossed from passive acceptance into active decision-making. A steady accumulation of data breaches, AI training controversies, and cookie banner enforcement actions has shifted the baseline. Trust in AI with personal data has fallen: 52% of consumers now trust AI less than humans with their data, up from 48% in 2025 – the largest single year-on-year movement in the dataset.

Market-by-market findings

Consumer behavior on AI trust varies significantly across the seven markets covered in the study:

Germany: 73% will pay more for AI transparency, at a 9% average premium — the highest globally. 75% have acted against a brand over AI data concerns.
Italy: 42% will pay more for AI transparency, at the lowest average premium of any market (5%).
Netherlands: 77% find AI-driven personalization intrusive, the highest globally. Only 35% will pay more for AI transparency, the lowest globally.
Spain: 76% have acted against a brand over AI data concerns, the highest of any market. 92% have taken some form of data protection action in the past six months.
Sweden: 69% trust banking with their data, the highest of any market. Yet 56% don’t have a good understanding of how their data is collected, also the highest. Sweden joins the study for the first time in 2026.
United Kingdom: 80% would stop using a service if their data was misused, the highest of any market. Data privacy rights awareness improved more in the UK than anywhere else this year (43% unaware, down from 50% in 2025).
United States: 50% will pay more for AI transparency. Only 39% trust government services with their data — the lowest of any market.

Additional key findings

71% of consumers are concerned that AI-driven personalization feels intrusive
48% click “accept all” on cookies less often than three years ago, up from 46% in 2025
Privacy-aware consumers are nearly three times more comfortable with personalization of their online experience than privacy-unaware consumers (53% versus 19%)

Read the full State of Digital Trust 2026 report here.

About the research

The State of Digital Trust 2026 is the second annual study commissioned by Usercentrics and conducted by Sapio Research. The survey polled 11,000 consumers across seven markets: the UK, USA, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Fieldwork was conducted in March 2026. Sweden joins the study for the first time this year; year-on-year comparisons exclude Swedish data.

About Usercentrics

Usercentrics is a leading data privacy technology company that helps businesses collect, manage, and activate consented data with confidence. Trusted by 2.4 million websites and apps across 195 countries, the company processes more than 8.8 billion user consents every month. Through its platform — spanning consent management, server-side tagging, and AI data governance — Usercentrics gives businesses the compliance infrastructure to grow, innovate, and operate responsibly in an AI-first world. Learn more at usercentrics.com.