83% of top German AI companies won’t say if they train on your data

According to Cybernews' new AI Trustworthiness Ranking 2026, which evaluated 500 AI firms across 36 countries on security, data privacy, transparency, and public perception, 83% of Germany's top AI companies fail to clearly disclose whether they use customer data to train their AI models.

As part of the ranking, 18 German AI companies were evaluated across categories such as AI assistants, productivity tools, coding, music, and creative platforms. Across the 500 AI companies analyzed worldwide, the average Trustworthiness score was 65 out of 100, compared with 66 out of 100 for German companies.

“Our goal with the AI Trustworthiness Ranking is to give users and businesses a clearer picture of how AI companies handle data and security. It is concerning that most of Germany’s leading AI companies do not clearly explain whether they use customer data to train their models. Transparency should not be optional when user data is involved,” says Voldemaras Kadys, member of the AI Trustworthiness Ranking Advisory Board and Head of Security and Platform Engineering at Mediatech, the digital publishing house behind Cybernews.

Transparency scored highest, while security scored lowest

Of the four pillars assessed, security received the lowest average score among German AI companies, at 38 out of 100. However, German companies still outperformed UK firms, which had an average security score of 29. The security pillar evaluates whether a company has a dedicated security or trust page, a bug bounty program, and certifications such as ISO/IEC 27001 or SOC 2.

Organizational transparency was the strongest area for German AI companies, with an average score of 98 out of 100, slightly higher than the UK’s average of 90. In this pillar, Cybernews assessed whether companies disclose their legal entity, physical address, and a working contact channel.

Public perception, based on company reviews on Trustpilot and G2, averaged 71, slightly ahead of the European average of 70. Data privacy scored 67, a little bit below the European average of 69.

83% of Germany’s top AI companies do not clearly disclose AI training practices

For the Data Privacy pillar, Cybernews analyzed companies’ privacy policies to assess how clearly they explain how they collect, share, use, and retain user data.

The analysis found that 83% of Germany’s leading AI companies do not clearly disclose whether they use user data to train their AI models. Half of the German companies analyzed make no mention of AI training on user data in their privacy policies, while a further 33% provide only vague information.

Data retention disclosures followed a similar pattern: 61% of German AI companies do not clearly disclose how long they retain user data – they provide only vague information without specifying precise retention periods.

n8n and Pitch lead the German AI Trustworthiness Ranking

Workflow automation platform n8n received the highest trustworthiness score among German AI companies, at 86 out of 100. It was followed by Pitch (81), Synthflow AI (78), Clickworker (74), and Beam AI (73).

Office and Productivity was the highest-performing AI category in Germany, with an average trustworthiness score of 81 out of 100. Music and Audio ranked lowest, averaging 47 out of 100. A pattern that closely resembles the US market, where the same two categories ranked highest and lowest, respectively.

Explore the full AI Trustworthiness Ranking and individual company scores here: https://cybernews.com/ai-knowledge-base/ai-trustworthiness-ranking-2026/