Why trust may be the defining competitive advantage of the AI era.
Over the past week, I’ve been following the conversations emerging from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Amid all the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence, one idea stood out. As Axios summarized, “Brands hold an advantage in two areas AI hasn’t mastered — consumer relationships and trust.”
That immediately caught my attention because it reflects something I’ve experienced throughout my career during significant moments of transformation and disruption. The internet changed how organizations communicate. Mobile reshaped customer expectations. Social media transformed how every company showed up in the world. Cloud computing reinvented how businesses operate. Each fundamentally changed the way leaders thought about growth, customer engagement and competitive advantage.
For all of that change, one thing has remained remarkably consistent. Organizations still succeed or fail based on whether people trust them.
The AI era has actually made trust more valuable, not less. When anyone can generate content in seconds, credibility becomes harder to earn. When information is unlimited, discernment becomes a competitive advantage. People don’t place their trust in technology alone, they place their trust in the organizations and leaders who decide how technology is used.
On paper, the industries I’ve worked in couldn’t have looked more different: financial services, healthcare, media and entertainment, manufacturing, infrastructure and cybersecurity. It took me years to realize that the businesses themselves weren’t really the story. What connected them was something much simpler. Every company I worked with was asking people to place an extraordinary amount of trust in them.
In healthcare, that meant helping people navigate deeply personal decisions with confidence. In media and entertainment, it meant protecting brands that generations of families welcomed into their homes. In manufacturing and infrastructure, it meant communicating the value of products and projects that quietly shape our everyday lives. Today, in cybersecurity, I’m privileged to help shape Optiv’s brand around a simple belief: trust isn’t just part of the value proposition. In many ways, it is the value proposition.
The defining question of the AI era isn’t how quickly organizations adopt new technology, it’s whether they use it in ways that strengthen the confidence people place in them. The companies that stand apart will be those that pair innovation with sound judgment, transparency and a deep commitment to earning trust every single day. I believe that’s the leadership challenge that matters most, and the opportunity that will define the next generation of enduring brands.
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