How Parents Can Tell What to Trust in the Age of AI

The decisions I make as a parent happen fast. I’m comparing options on my phone while packing lunches, scanning reviews during a five-minute window before pickup, or searching “best sunscreen for sensitive kid’s skin” and hoping whatever comes back is reliable.

That search experience has changed lately. Increasingly, what we see first is an AI-generated summary or a curated snippet pulled from sites we never actually visit. The original reviews and community threads are still out there, but behind another click, and sometimes another one after that.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. AI surfaces useful information quickly, and speed matters when you are a parent trying to make it through an average Tuesday. But more information does not always mean more clarity, and “polished” is not the same thing as “trustworthy.”

I have spent nearly 20 years helping consumers make more informed decisions. First as the founder of ChickAdvisor, and now with Butterly, where our community tests products at home and shares what they actually experience. I make these decisions as a mom too, standing in the same aisles, trying to figure out what is real.

Here is what I have learned, and what our research with 2,100 Canadians reinforced: the most trustworthy recommendations rarely sound perfect.

The best reviews sound like real life

When I read a review that says, “this is the best product ever, my whole family loves it, five stars,” I keep scrolling. The reviews that actually help me decide sound like a real person talking about a real experience and are specific. They mention what happened when they used the product in their actual home, with their actual kids. They include what worked and what did not.

Our research confirms this. People trust feedback that is honest and grounded in real use. Someone who mentions a limitation is often more credible than someone who only shares positives, because it tells you the person is being honest.

For parents, this matters practically. The most useful review helps you picture whether something will work in your household, on that random Tuesday. A five-star rating with no context doesn’t do that. A three-paragraph description of whether a backpack survived a full school year with a kid who wears through everything in a week absolutely does. (Even though the colour selection is severely limited.)

Advice that includes tradeoffs is more credible than advice that sounds flawless. Negative reviews are just as helpful – if there are no negative reviews at all, I wonder whether they’ve been suppressed by the brand or retailer. There is no such thing as a product that 100% of people love, and negative reviews highlight issues that help you make a more informed decision.

A simple filter for parents

You do not need to become an expert in how AI works to make good decisions. You just need a few questions to sort through what you are reading, whether it was written by a person, summarized by AI, or somewhere in between.

When I am evaluating a recommendation, I ask myself:

Does the person writing this sound credible – like someone I’d trust?

Is the information they’ve provided helpful?

What are the potential downsides, so I can decide if I’m comfortable taking the risk?

Are they overall happy they made that purchase?

I remember how stressful it was buying my son’s first car seat. I wanted the safest one on the market, and I wanted to hear about it from other moms – not the sixteen-year-old part-time employee working the car seats and strollers’ section that day. If a recommendation hits most of those questions, I pay attention. If it reads like a press release, I move on.

Trust the people who are trying to help

Our research found that people share recommendations for a surprisingly simple reason: they think the information could genuinely help someone else. And as parents, we’re all just trying to help each other get by on a Tuesday.

This is particularly true for us because there is so much at stake. When it comes to buying things for your kids, you want the best quality you can afford and something that will last. Only another parent can tell you if the product is a good one.

When someone shares because they want to be useful rather than because they are incentivized to be positive, the quality of what they say is different. It’s more specific, more grounded, and more honest.

As parents, we have always relied on that kind of trust. The recommendation from a friend at drop-off. The honest answer from another mom in a Facebook group. AI is changing how we discover information, but the signals that help us decide have not changed.

Honesty. Specificity. Context. Usefulness. Those are still the things that matter. And if you stay guided by them, you will make good decisions — no matter how the information reaches you.

About the Author

Ali de Bold is the founder and CEO of Butterly and a longtime consumer advocate who built her business to help people make more informed decisions. She is also a mom, and writes from the perspective that trust matters most when families are trying to make everyday choices with confidence. The research referred to in this article can be found here: Butterly 2026 Trust Index.