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Trust has become the entry ticket to the internet, and users are now choosing safety over price and speed. We sit down with Raj from Trua to dig into the 2025 Trust Survey and why verification has shifted from a nice-to-have to a must-have. From shocking stats on consumer expectations to the real reasons fear and fatigue are rewriting behavior, we map out what it takes to build platforms people will actually use—and pay for.

We walk through the practical playbook: make safety the first thing users see, put verified badges and last-checked timestamps front and center, and adopt “friction by design” to deter bad actors without punishing good ones. Raj breaks down progressive checks that scale with risk—identity and address for low-stakes, licenses and criminal screens when necessary, and liveness for high-impact flows like dating and hiring. He explains why trust tech is emerging as its own category and how a reusable, tokenized credential can follow you across apps, slashing repeated data collection while boosting conversion and confidence.

AI and deepfakes add urgency. With bots posing as people, human identity verification becomes essential for high-risk interactions, and continuous authentication helps separate real users from synthetic scams. We also explore the regulatory landscape, why co‑opting consumers is cheaper and more effective than piling on rules, and how brands like Apple translate privacy into loyalty. The gig economy emerges as the flash point: tens of millions move across platforms that need fast, safe onboarding and fewer data silos to breach.

If you care about growth, retention, and brand resilience, now is the time to operationalize trust. Subscribe, share this episode with a product or security leader, and leave a review with one change you’ll make to bring safety to the surface.

Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology Podcast
Interviews with Tech Leaders and insights on the latest emerging technology trends.

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