28/05/2026
Last week I delivered 'The Trust Dividend' as a closing keynote at the Agentic AI 2026 conference. The argument in one line: when every business has access to similar agentic capability, the differentiator isn't the tech. It's the brand and the trust that surrounds it.
The winners in agentic AI will be defined by brand, not just tech. That's the through-line I walked the room through, unpacking these three ideas:
🌵 The Wild West : what's actually happening in the market right now (gold rush energy, snake oil vendors, fear-driven decisions), and why FOMO is a terrible deployment strategy.
🤝 The Trust Dividend : what it is and how you earn it. Why brand and trust become the real differentiator when every business has access to the same agentic capability.
🏛️ The Three Golden Gates : a decision framework inspired by the three gates my grandmother taught me to pass my words through, especially in tough situations.
1️⃣ Is it kind❔
Does it serve the people it touches, or just the people deploying it?
2️⃣ Is it true❔
True to your brand, your values, your strategy.
2️⃣ Is it wise❔
Wise about the data, the IP, the trust, and what you can't undo.
From frontline experience as a co-founder of an agentic AI company in the marketing and knowledge management space, I've seen how applying these leads to better AI decisions.
The kind that strengthen trust rather than erode it (along with the typical productivity and efficiency benefits people are usually driven by when it comes to agentic capability).
You can't automate giving a damn.
Human in the loop has become a tick-box phrase. What too many are missing is WHERE in the loop the human is, WHO that human is, and WHAT they're actually doing there.
If they're at the end, you're approving generic output.
If it's the right human at the start, you're augmenting something distinctly you.
I also had a lot of fun showing the room what augmentation actually looks like in practice. Real Nina + augmented Nina. Both working together through an interactive, real-time experience, to demonstrate what thoughtful, deliberate augmentation can be.
Because the question isn't automate or augment. It's both. The question is which one for what.....and at what cost to trust.
🔑 Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. 🔑
P.S. If you'd like this keynote for your team or members, I'm taking bookings for Q3 and Q4. Reach out.
P.P.S. Congratulations to Mitch and Subbu the winners of signed copies of my latest book for the best questions asked to ‘Virtual Nina’ on the day.
P.P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure: yes, AI was used in a couple of these images. Although it might surprise you which ones. One is obviously AI. One natural shot looks AI-generated. One AI image looks completely natural. See if you can pick them. 🕵️
