Truace
Subscribe
70/100

Moderate evidence

ProblemPublished recordScienceProblem Space

Full story
More
Export record JSONEmailLinkedInX

Is Trust Correlated With Explainability in AI? A Meta-Analysis

Truvace record
TRV-2026-2788raw data (JSON)
Version
v1Published
First published
Evidence type
Systematic review or meta-analysis
Sources
1 sourcePeer-reviewed
sha256
95b00b9ee5ee…check it

This study critically examines the commonly held assumption that explicability in artificial intelligence (AI) systems inherently boosts user trust. Utilizing a meta-analytical approach, we conducted a comprehensive examination of the existing literature to explore the relationship between AI explainability and trust. Our analysis, incorporating data from 90 studies, reveals a statistically significant but moderate positive correlation between the explainability of AI systems and the trust they engender among us…

The problem

A meta-analysis of 90 studies found that explainability explains little of user trust in AI (random-effects correlation 0.194, 95% CI 0.174 to 0.210), weaker than some earlier studies had suggested.

What this doesn’t fix

The review focused on non-generative AI, and the pooled studies differed substantially from one another (I² of 78.337), so the single correlation summarizes mixed designs and may not apply to generative models.

Sources

1 on file
  1. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Societydoi:10.1109/tts.2025.3558448
    Peer-reviewed2025-04-14

What the review found when it combined the studies

These are the review’s own pooled results, copied from its abstract. Truvace did not recalculate them.

  • Correlation between AI explainability and user trust in AI systems (fixed-effects model)

    Correlation (r) 0.204 (95% CI 0.194 to 0.214)

    90 studies

    The review’s own words
    the correlation coefficient is 0.204 with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 0.194 to 0.214

  • Correlation between AI explainability and user trust in AI systems (random-effects model)

    Correlation (r) 0.194 (95% CI 0.174 to 0.210)

    90 studies

    The review’s own words
    The results of the random-effects model analysis indicate that the correlation between trust and XAI is 0.194, indicating a weak positive correlation. The 95% confidence interval for this correlation ranges from 0.174 to 0.210

Code checks every number above against the review’s text before it is shown. The short labels are an AI model’s reading of that text, so the review’s own sentence sits under each one. A pooled figure is only as strong as the studies behind it. How Truvace uses pooled results

Cite this record

v1

Truvace Impact Record TRV-2026-2788, v1: “Is Trust Correlated With Explainability in AI? A Meta-Analysis.” Truvace, 2026-11-12. /record/TRV-2026-2788 (accessed on the day you copy it). sha256 95b00b9ee5ee5ff4…

Change history

1 version

Every change made to this record since it was first published, and why. Nothing has changed since it went up.

  1. Publishedv195b00b9ee5ee…

    Certified into the record

Check this record hasn’t been altered

Check this record hasn’t been altered
How to check it yourself, without trusting this page

Download any version from /api/record/TRV-2026-2788 and hash its canonical field yourself, for example with shasum -a 256. You should get its content_hash. Each version’s text also ends with prev:and the hash of the version before it (version 1 points to 64 zeros). If anyone had changed a single character of any version after it was saved, those hashes wouldn’t line up.