Trustpilot removed 4.5 million fake reviews in 2024, with 90% taken down automatically by AI tools, as the customer feedback platform stepped up efforts to protect its integrity amid rising regulatory pressure and record volumes of user content. The figures were published in the Danish consumer review website’s latest Trust Report, which outlines how the […]
Trustpilot removed 4.5 million fake reviews in 2024, with 90% taken down automatically by AI tools, as the customer feedback platform stepped up efforts to protect its integrity amid rising regulatory pressure and record volumes of user content.
The figures were published in the Danish consumer review website’s latest Trust Report, which outlines how the company is using machine learning, neural networks, and generative AI to detect and remove fraudulent content at scale.
The company said its enhanced systems led to a 53% increase in automatically removed reviews compared with 2023.
“While we often hear about AI as a tool that can be used to mislead people, at Trustpilot, we are using the technology to improve trust in the age of AI,” said Anoop Joshi, chief trust officer at Trustpilot.
“By analysing content and identifying suspicious patterns, we help maintain the fundamental integrity of our platform as it grows.”
Trustpilot, which claims to be the world’s largest independent platform for customer feedback, processed 61 million reviews in 2024 alone.
That brings the total number hosted to more than 300 million. The increasing scale, the company argued, is itself a defence mechanism, as more data strengthens its ability to detect anomalous or malicious activity.
The report also revealed that 92,000 reviews were flagged by consumers and 601,000 by businesses for breaching platform guidelines in 2024, underscoring the role of the community alongside technology and specialist teams.
Part of the company’s strategy has been the introduction of detection software that predicts whether a review has been purchased.
These systems use graph-based models and behavioural pattern recognition to identify suspicious activity. Joshi explained that every single review is now screened by automated systems before becoming visible on the site.
“Throughout last year, we also increased our efforts to target review sellers by introducing new detection software that looks for evidence that a review has been purchased,” Joshi told TechInformed.
“We’re continuing to improve our ability to detect new fraudulent patterns and prevent fake reviews from reaching the platform.”
Fake reviews accounted for 7.4% of all reviews submitted in 2024, up from 6.1% in 2023, indicating both the growing volume of content and the platform’s improving ability to detect fraudulent behaviour. Despite the rise, Trustpilot stressed that more effective tools and larger data volumes are enabling it to respond at speed and scale.
Online reviews have become a tool for businesses to build credibility. In 2024, 22 million people wrote a review for the first time and 229,000 companies were reviewed for the first time, representing annual increases of 13% and 35%, respectively.
“As trust becomes more important than ever, we believe that transparency, data and AI can be used to protect people, not mislead them,” said Joshi. “The challenge is real, but we’re rising to meet it.”
