Meta's Consumer Trust Problem Could Be a Roadblock for Its AI Plans

In a 6,500-word manifesto published on Monday, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg described a future where everyone has a personal AI agent working around the clock to help manage their relationships, health, career, finances and household. But for that vision to become reality, users will need to hand Meta deeply personal data — including information about their homes, medical records and finances. The question is whether consumers are ready for that.

This isn't a new problem for Meta. The 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal — though some argue its scale was overstated — exposed just how widely the company had shared user data with researchers, app developers and advertisers. Trust in the company plunged after Zuckerberg's testimony before the U.S. Senate and House, with Facebook ranking last for consumer trust in Business Insider's 2019 Digital Trust report.

That erosion of trust later derailed Meta's 2019 Diem (Libra) cryptocurrency project as well: once many governments signaled they wouldn't support the company creating its own currency, major partners including Visa, Mastercard and PayPal pulled out. Facebook's 2021 rebrand to Meta was itself an attempt to shed those negative associations, though it hasn't fully succeeded — a 2023 Forbes Advisor survey found Meta was the least trusted tech company for handling user data in the U.K. (48% of respondents said so), and a February 2025 Forrester survey found only a third of U.S. and U.K. online users trust Meta as much as or more than they did in 2024.

Against the backdrop of ongoing controversies over social media addiction, harm to teenagers, massive hacking incidents and data centers, it seems like a tall order for users to hand over even more information to an AI bot making decisions about their personal lives. The controversy around Meta's AI glasses — reports that some users disabled the recording light to film others without their knowledge — has dealt the company's brand yet another blow.

Still, history suggests utility often wins out over privacy concerns — if Meta can demonstrate real value from its latest AI models, users may ultimately be willing to hand over their sensitive data after all. But that's a high bar, and for Zuckerberg's vision of a superintelligent AI-powered future to materialize, Meta will first need to rebuild trust in its own brand.