UK & US consumers question message legitimacy, survey finds

Research from Exclaimer found that 41% of consumers in the UK and US have questioned whether a message they received was genuine or legitimate.

The survey also found that 58% now use artificial intelligence in their daily communications.

The findings suggest growing unease about digital messages as people split their attention across multiple apps, platforms and inboxes. Exclaimer surveyed 2,000 adults in the UK and US and found that the average person now uses at least six communication channels each day.

That fragmentation appears to affect whether important information is seen and retained. More than one in five respondents said they had missed important information because it was sent on a platform they rarely check. The same share said they had struggled to find an important message because it arrived on what they regarded as the wrong platform.

Another 18% said they had lost an important message because a platform deleted it, an account was closed or they changed devices.

Trust signals

Email emerged as the preferred channel for messages people want to keep or revisit. The research found that 56% chose email when they needed to retain or refer back to information, while 39% said they had deliberately used email over another platform to create a permanent record.

The survey also suggested that the platform itself shapes how messages are judged. Almost half of respondents said the platform used affects how trustworthy a message feels, while 46% said it influences professionalism and 37% said it affects how seriously a message is taken.

When deciding whether an email is genuine, respondents most often looked for full contact details, cited by 45%, followed by a professional company email address at 44% and a clear sender name at 31%.

Older consumers were more likely to rely on those practical checks. Among people aged 65 and over, 53% said full contact details made an email feel trustworthy, compared with 38% of those aged 18 to 24.

Older adults were also more sceptical overall. More than half of those aged 65 and over said they had questioned whether a message was genuine or legitimate, compared with 26% of 18 to 24-year-olds.

AI use

The research found that artificial intelligence is now widely used to draft and shape everyday messages. The most common uses were improving grammar and spelling, cited by 21%, and making writing sound more professional, at 20%.

Some respondents also said they used AI to influence tone and perception. Fourteen per cent said they used it to sound more confident, 12% to soften difficult messages and 9% to avoid awkward conversations.

Use of the technology fell sharply with age. Among those aged 18 to 24, 82% said they used AI in daily communications, compared with 79% of those aged 25 to 34 and 30% of those aged 65 and over.

Younger people were also more likely to use AI for sensitive exchanges. One in five Gen Z respondents said they used it to soften difficult messages, and 19% said they used it to avoid awkward conversations, compared with 5% and 2% respectively among Baby Boomers.

Email preference

Despite the growth of messaging apps and social platforms, email retained a strong role in formal or consequential exchanges. Respondents said it was their preferred channel for making a formal complaint to a company, receiving employer updates such as benefits or human resources information, discussing a job opportunity and receiving healthcare information or results.

Jenny Herbison, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Exclaimer, said the findings show that people care less about how quickly a message arrives than whether they can trust it and feel confident about who sent it.

"When something is important, people still turn to email because it carries a level of trust and legitimacy they don't always associate with other channels," Herbison said.

"Part of that is the fact that email provides a lasting record of communication that people can refer back to when they need to verify information or confirm what was said. In a world of constant notifications and competing platforms, that combination of trust, accountability and permanence is becoming increasingly important."