How transparency builds trust: A conversation with Anoop Joshi, Chief Trust Officer at Trustpilot

Let’s start simple. Why does Trustpilot release a Trust Report every year?

Great question. For us, it all comes down to transparency and building trust. We believe if you're asking businesses to be open and honest with their customers, you’d better be walking the walk yourself. That’s what our Trust Report (formerly known as the Transparency Report) is all about: we’re laying our cards on the table. It gives anyone, from everyday shoppers to government regulators and business owners, a clear view of what we’re doing as a business to build and protect trust.

We’re in a unique position to enhance how people and businesses connect online. Just last year, more than 61 million reviews were written on Trustpilot. That’s a 15% jump from the year before. We also had 22 million people leave a review for the first time. So when we talk about trust and transparency, it's not just a guiding principle, it's a growing movement. 

Consumers leave reviews for all types of businesses in more than 100 countries, but some of our biggest sectors include shopping and fashion, money and insurance, electronics and technology, and home and garden. But it was business services that led the way in 2024, with 8.3 million reviews, representing a 16% increase year on year. People are showing up to share their experiences more than ever before, and they want to know the platform they’re using is committed to doing the right thing each and every day.

Why does transparency matter for building trust?

It matters because trust doesn’t come from perfection, instead, it comes from honesty, even if it’s difficult. Everyone makes mistakes. But when a business owns up to them, listens, and improves, people take notice. That’s how trust is built over time.

Transparency shows you have nothing to hide. That’s important in a world where marketing messages are everywhere and consumer scepticism is high, especially in 2025. If someone’s deciding whether or not to buy from you or your competitors, seeing real feedback from other customers can be the tipping point and can turn browsers into brand loyalists.

How often should companies be lifting the lid like this?

Transparency shouldn’t be an annual occasion, but instead, part of your everyday rhythm. Trust takes time. And, being consistently open about how your company operates, how it collects and acts on feedback, and what you’re doing to improve, can be the difference between building or eroding trust with your customers. 

That can be as easy as sharing an update on social media or doing a more in-depth update with an email campaign, but being honest when something doesn’t go to plan shouldn’t be a big performance, more part of how businesses do things naturally. 

Trustpilot talks a lot about honest conversations, not just with consumers but with businesses and governments. What does that look like in practice?

Fake reviews undermine consumer and business trust and ultimately damage the fairness of the entire marketplace. We are constantly evolving and investing in our own tools to help maintain the integrity of the content on our platform, and we’re also strong advocates for regulation to combat them on a broader scale.

To us, trust is all about an open and honest dialogue. We make it easy for people to leave reviews, but just as importantly, we make it easy for businesses to respond. The relationship between customers and business matters, and it shows that these experiences can be used for good. Sure, these conversations can help sharpen marketing strategies, but more than that, they show that businesses are stepping up and doing right by their customers. It also helps businesses build trust, grow, and improve their services.  

We’re actively talking with regulators, industry peers, and policymakers across the UK, EU, and U.S. to help shape and define policy on reviews. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. published its new rule on The Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, which prevents companies from using false consumer reviews to promote their products and services. We engaged with the FTC when they were drawing up the rule, and in the end, they cited us multiple times when it was eventually published.   

And in 2023, we helped launch the Coalition for Trusted Reviews alongside companies like Amazon, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Glassdoor, and TripAdvisor. It’s a collaborative effort to help safeguard the integrity of online reviews, and we’re really proud to be part of this initiative, which is helping to define best practice for the reviews industry. 

AI is a big part of Trustpilot’s moderation system. What role does it play in trust-building?

AI has become an invaluable tool to help us spot trouble before it spreads. It’s here to strengthen trust, not erode it. We get nearly 200,000 reviews a day, and every single one is screened by these advanced detection systems before it goes live. This technology includes machine learning, graph models, and more, all working to catch fake reviews, suspicious behaviour, or guideline violations.

Just last year, we took down 4.5 million fake reviews. Around 90% of these fake reviews were caught automatically by our detection models, while the rest were flagged by our community or picked up by our brilliant Content Integrity and Fraud & Investigations teams. But we also use AI to make things easier for people. For example, our team uses generative tools to moderate more efficiently, and we’ve introduced detection models to flag review sellers and potential scams at scale. It’s not about removing the human touch, but instead, it’s about giving people the tools to keep the platform safe and fair with real-time speed.

What are your predictions about trust over the next year?

I think trust is going to become even more central to how businesses grow. With AI, misinformation, and economic uncertainty all in play, consumers will be asking: Who can I believe?

Companies that prioritize openness and genuinely listen to their customers will come out on top, while the ones that try to hide behind polished messaging won’t cut it anymore. Transparency isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential for all modern-day businesses. 

Here at Trustpilot, we’ll keep doing our part. More transparency, stronger safeguards, and a commitment to making the internet a place where people can trust what they see.

Thanks, Anoop. Any final thoughts?

Trust isn’t something you get once and it sticks forever. It’s something you earn every day. That’s the mindset we have at Trustpilot, and we hope others will join us in that effort. Because when trust is strong, everyone wins.