General-Consumer Reception of AI-Washing Claims

Determine how general consumers, particularly those with varying levels of AI literacy, receive the AI-washing claims made by German startups.

Background

The study’s interview sample consists of 53 AI-literate professionals and graduate students rather than a probability sample of German consumers. Consequently, the reported trust and skepticism findings cannot establish how the broader population responds to exaggerated or misleading AI marketing. The paper notes that lower AI literacy is associated with greater receptivity to AI claims, making the reception of the same claims among general consumers an unresolved empirical question.

References

The interview sample is small, so it cannot show what a full-population sample would: lower AI literacy predicts greater receptivity to AI claims \citep{tully2025lower}, so how general consumers receive the same claims remains open.

— Auditing AI-Washing in German Startups: A Mixed-Methods Study of Marketing Claims and Perceptions  (2610.11788 - Pranav et al., 8 Oct 2026) in Section Methods, subsection Interviews, paragraph “Limitations”