For years, C-Suite leaders have talked about trust being “the ultimate currency” that’s earned in drops and lost in buckets. Yet, it's that same trust that is quickly becoming a key differentiator when the same leaders announce AI-motivated layoffs, AI floods our personal and professional lives, and when it gets harder to discern what’s real and who’s real.
I spoke at an event in Europe and was asked: How can trust become a strategic advantage for innovation, efficiency, and employee retention in an AI-driven world? While I answered it from the vantage point of a thought leader (creating trust through authenticity and real experience(s)), trust has many more facets that I’ve been pondering. That’s why it’s the central topic of today’s article.
For nearly three years, we have witnessed an evolution in AI: AI generates, AI automates, and AI decides more tasks in business and in our lives. But it’s not just AI (or software) doing business with other AIs. Most of the time, there is a human on the other side of the transaction. Someone who receives information, buys products, and consumes services. The old phrase comes to mind: business is people buying from people. At the end of the day, that customer or consumer has a high level of trust in your business. They build trust: » …when the expected actions or results are congruent with the actual actions or results.« So how does trust become a key pillar of success?
Trust as an Advantage for Innovation
Compare the value propositions on your favorite software vendors' websites, and you'll find some aspect of trust in their messaging: trust, trustworthiness, responsibility, security. The idea is simple: You can trust us to do the right thing. But shouldn’t that be the baseline expectation? Why do we need to reiterate that? When everyone says it, it loses differentiation and meaning.
You trust your car maker to build a vehicle that is safe. You trust your food retailer to accurately label items’ best-by dates. You trust your hotel of choice to have a room for you after you have booked it. So, what’s the point? In the absence of first-hand experience, trust is an important aspect—when products are intangible, outcomes are uncertain, and the stakes are high. Generative and Agentic AI tick all these boxes, by the way.
How to make trust your advantage: As the leader of an IT or AI department or software company, communicate that you have a high bar, and prove through examples that you do. Trust can be a differentiator. It’s tightly coupled with the value of a company’s or of your personal brand.
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But another aspect builds upon that baseline of trusting a brand or department: efficiency. Trust itself is a shortcut. If you trust someone or in something, you do not need to reconfirm that quasi-contract (“do as you say”) for every interaction. This aspect is important when you use a new piece of software, like AI agents.
You give the agent a goal to research a market niche, and it should return comprehensive and relevant information in a briefing for you to review and act upon. You might want to follow the steps and reasoning your AI agent has applied to reach a given goal to see if the system is working as expected. But the next time, you should be able to trust that the agent reaches its goal as intended. The question in this case is: Can you trust that AI-generated results are relevant, accurate, complete, and unbiased? And can you do so every time?
How to make trust your advantage: Build and deliver software that you can stand behind and prove that it is safe, secure, and works reliably—as intended.
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This spring, the CEOs of Shopify and Duolingo have made headlines with their AI-first memos or with hiring back humans, in the case of Klarna. Salesforce, Microsoft, and several others have touted significant efficiency gains in their operations because of AI. While claims like these are hard to verify independently, they are an important signal for financial analysts and investors that the companies selling AI-enabled business software are seeing gains themselves due to AI.
In other cases, more and more CEOs are justifying layoffs by offsetting the cost of AI and preparing the company for increased AI-driven efficiency. But as a manager, it’s often hard to explain or justify to your team how a company that’s profitable and successful needs to get even leaner. Plus, for those team members remaining, AI-driven efficiency is rather the reason for more work rather than for more efficiency. So, whom should employees trust?
How to make trust your advantage: Be truthful and be consistent in your emphasis on employees being your company’s greatest asset.
Summary
While AI is quickly automating increasing amounts of tasks and business processes, humans remain the customers of any company. As such, trust remains a critical component in human decisions, spanning innovation, efficiency, and talent retention. Leaders looking to truly differentiate themselves and their companies should strategically create trust with stakeholder groups along these dimensions.
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