Butterly is making a clear argument that will resonate with any retailer or brand watching consumer discovery change in real time. In an environment where AI systems increasingly summarize and recommend products, the company says trust is no longer an abstract brand attribute. It is becoming an input that shapes visibility, consideration, and conversion.
The company’s new report, the Butterly 2026 Trust Index, draws on feedback from approximately 2,100 Canadian consumers and examines what makes people comfortable being honest, what authenticity means in their own words, and why advocacy happens without incentives.
Ali de Bold, Founder and CEO of Butterly, said the shift is already underway. “Search is fundamentally changing, and how people discover products,” she said in an interview. “What is powering ChatGPT’s recommendations? It’s real feedback from real people.”
AI is changing how shoppers validate products
Retailers have spent the past decade optimizing for clicks, impressions, and increasingly fragmented digital funnels. However, Butterly’s research frames the next phase as something different, a discovery shaped by structured signals that AI can interpret confidently.
The report’s premise is straightforward. Not all feedback carries the same weight. Reviews become more useful to both shoppers and AI when they reflect real use, include specific language, and show balance rather than performance. Butterly argues that these qualities emerge when consumers feel respected, well-matched to products, and confident that their feedback is taken seriously.
For Canadian retailers, that lands at an important moment. Product pages and listings are crowded, private labels are expanding, and shoppers continue to rely heavily on peer validation before trying something new, especially in categories where fit and personal experience matter.
What “authentic” looks like, according to consumers
One of the more valuable takeaways from the Trust Index is how clearly respondents define authenticity. Butterly positions authentic feedback as the opposite of polish. It is honesty, balance, and a reflection of real-life use, including what did not work.
De Bold said brands that embrace this approach send a signal that consumers recognize. “They’re basically like tell us what you think,” she said. “That shows that the brand feels confident enough in their product that they’re okay with people being honest about how they feel.”
That consumer definition matters because many brands still treat reviews as an extension of marketing. In practice, shoppers often do the opposite. They scan for nuance, and they actively look for downsides.
“That’s actually one of the number one education pieces that we always have to tell our clients,” de Bold said. “Be so thankful if you get, you know, like a 4.4 out of 5 as your average. That’s fantastic. There is nothing more suspicious to other shoppers than all the reviews are five stars.”
Why negative reviews can increase conversion
The interview offered a reminder that is easy to overlook in retail. A strong review program is not about perfection, it is about credibility.
De Bold described a common shopper behaviour pattern: consumers will see a strong average rating, then immediately read lower-scoring reviews to understand risk and context. “A normal consumer behaviour is, okay, I am interested in this product. I see it has a good score. I am going to quickly read the two star reviews and see if these people are whack, or if there is a legitimate problem,” she said.
This is also where brands can create unforced errors. If a site or program suppresses negative feedback, the remaining content may look artificially clean. That can reduce trust rather than increase it.
From a compliance perspective, companies should also be careful about how they present reviews, endorsements, and testimonial content. In Canada, the Competition Bureau has emphasized that false or misleading representations can create legal exposure, including in the context of online reviews and deceptive practices. The practical implication is that transparency is not optional, and retailers and brands should avoid creating an impression that the review ecosystem is more independent or complete than it truly is.
From review content to product decisions
Butterly is also leaning into how brands operationalize feedback once it is collected. De Bold said the company has built AI-driven insights to surface patterns inside review content so teams can make changes faster.
“One thing that we’ve done in the back end with Butterly is we have an AI insights integration,” she said. “If AI sees that like hey, a bunch of people mentioned that the lid was hard to open, you know, then it’s like maybe you should revise your packaging.”
That is a meaningful shift for retail and CPG teams that have historically relied on periodic surveys, small focus groups, or lagging sales data to identify issues. If trustworthy feedback becomes more consistent and more detailed, the loop between consumer experience and product iteration can tighten.
Retail implications: discovery, conversion, and the shelf
While Butterly’s core clients are brands, de Bold said retailers also benefit because they are ultimately trying to move product and reduce friction for first-time purchases.
“It’s about like consumer trust and what makes them feel comfortable to buy from a brand that they’ve never tried before,” she said. “It’s not necessarily being featured in a flyer or a display. It’s going to be how do other consumers feel about that product?”
She pointed to social discovery as another layer of proof, especially for younger consumers. “If you are not popping up all over social, you kind of don’t exist to certain generations,” de Bold said, adding that the difference is shoppers increasingly want to see real people rather than paid influencer scripts.
Butterly also runs programs that can support new retail listings by showing proof of off-shelf purchase. De Bold described initiatives where participants film themselves buying a product in-store at retailers such as Costco, Sobeys, or Whole Foods, then share the content. She said retailers value this because it can drive incremental foot traffic while reinforcing availability and legitimacy.
Review volume still matters, but recency and quality matter more
One detail from the interview that stood out was de Bold’s view that some retailers still underinvest in review ecosystems. In her experience, the conversion tipping point depends on having enough reviews and keeping them current.
“The tipping point is usually around at least 20 and they’re recent,” she said. “They’re not from two years ago, they’re from like, you know, two weeks ago or from yesterday.”
Her point is not that every SKU needs hundreds of reviews. It is that shoppers use reviews as a final confidence check, and thin, outdated content can leave a product page feeling unfinished.
De Bold also drew a distinction between low scores and low-quality feedback. She suggested that brief, vague reviews are less useful to both shoppers and AI systems than reviews that explain what happened and why. In an AI-mediated discovery environment, that may become an even bigger issue, because models tend to reward specificity and context.
Generational shifts and the future of influence
The Trust Index findings also speak to how different age groups develop trust. De Bold said younger consumers grew up treating crowdsourced feedback as a default source of truth, while older consumers adopted it over time depending on category and purchase risk.
When it comes to influencer marketing, her view was nuanced. She noted that disclosure requirements changed the value equation, and that some influencer content will remain effective in categories like apparel where fit, look, and demonstration drive decisions. However, she suggested that skepticism rises when the content is framed as personal opinion but is clearly compensated.
That is likely where the Butterly 2026 Trust Index will attract attention from marketing teams trying to balance performance marketing with credibility. As AI becomes an increasingly common starting point for discovery, the difference between paid promotion and experience-based recommendation may become sharper.
A Canadian company reframing trust as infrastructure
Butterly has been operating in the review and advocacy space for nearly two decades, evolving from early written reviews to social content formats that have changed repeatedly over time. On its Trust Index landing page, the company positions the report as a guide to what produces trustworthy insight now, and why those conditions matter more as AI systems mediate discovery.
De Bold’s broader strategy is to ensure Butterly’s ecosystem becomes a source that AI systems can rely on. “Our whole strategy for 2026 is how do we become a major engine that AI looks at to make recommendations for products that people should buy,” she said.
For retailers and brands, the underlying message is practical. Trust is increasingly built through systems, not slogans. Product-to-person fit, clear expectations, and respect for honest input do not just improve insight quality. They can influence how products are summarized, surfaced, and recommended at scale.
And in a retail environment where discovery keeps shifting, that may be one of the more actionable competitive advantages available.
