The Currency of the Digital Economy is Trust

Artificial intelligence may dominate today’s headlines, but technology alone will not determine its success. The digital economy ultimately depends on something far less visible: trust. It is trust that gives people the confidence to embrace innovation, allows businesses to invest and enables economies to work together across borders.

For almost three months, I unknowingly paid a recurring charge that I believed was legitimate. It appeared on my credit card statement under a familiar-looking merchant name, raised no obvious red flags and blended into the dozens of transactions we make every month. Only when I looked more closely did I realize I had been the victim of an online scam.

Like many people, I consider myself reasonably careful online. Yet the experience was a timely reminder that in today’s digital economy, trust can be exploited just as easily as technology can be advanced.

That lesson stayed with me throughout APEC Digital Weeks in Chengdu last month.

Much of the week’s discussion centered on artificial intelligence (AI), data and the future of the digital economy. But beneath every conversation lay a much simpler question: how do we build digital systems that people can trust?

It is tempting to think of trust as something intangible. Yet it is every bit as important to the digital economy as roads are to trade or ports are to shipping. Without trust, people hesitate to share data, businesses delay investment and new technologies struggle to gain acceptance.

Innovation may move quickly, but adoption depends on confidence. In many ways, trust has become the invisible infrastructure of the digital economy.

Before AI Had a Name

Everyone seems to think the age of AI arrived overnight.

One day we were using the internet to search for information and send emails. The next, AI was writing reports, translating languages, supporting medical diagnoses and helping businesses make decisions. The pace of change feels extraordinary, and in many ways it is. But technological revolutions rarely begin on the day they capture public attention.

When APEC was established in 1989, few people imagined a world connected by smartphones, cloud computing or AI. Yet less than a year later, member economies created the Telecommunications and Information Working Group, recognizing that digital connectivity would become an increasingly important driver of economic development across the Asia-Pacific. Looking back today, that decision appears remarkably forward-looking.

The technologies have changed beyond recognition, but APEC’s underlying purpose has remained consistent, and that is to help economies use technology to strengthen growth, expand opportunity and improve people’s lives.

AI is not a departure from that journey. It is the latest chapter in it.

From Connectivity to Capability

The scale of the region’s digital transformation has been nothing short of remarkable.

When China last hosted APEC in 2014, just over half of people across the Asia-Pacific were using the internet. Today, almost 90 percent are online, representing nearly 1.2 billion additional people connected in just one decade.

That success also changes the conversation. For many years, the region’s priority was expanding connectivity. Today, connectivity is increasingly the foundation rather than the destination.

The next challenge is ensuring that those digital foundations translate into greater productivity, stronger public services and wider economic opportunity.

AI is already becoming part of that transition. Manufacturers are improving productivity. Doctors are gaining new tools to support diagnosis and treatment. Researchers are accelerating scientific discovery. Small businesses are reaching customers far beyond their local markets, while governments are exploring new ways to deliver more responsive public services.

The greatest impact of AI may not come through dramatic breakthroughs that dominate headlines. It may come through thousands of practical improvements that quietly make businesses more competitive, public services more effective and everyday life a little easier.

Trust is the Real Infrastructure

Yet as the conversations unfolded, another theme became impossible to ignore: data.

AI depends on data. The quality of its outputs, the reliability of its decisions and the confidence people place in it are all shaped by the quality, availability and responsible use of data. As AI becomes more capable, data is increasingly becoming the foundation on which digital innovation is built.

But data does not create value simply because it exists. It creates value when people and businesses have the confidence to share, use and exchange it responsibly. That means protecting privacy, strengthening cybersecurity, promoting transparency and building governance frameworks that encourage innovation while maintaining public trust.

Finding that balance will not look the same in every economy.

The Asia-Pacific is one of the world’s most diverse regions, with different legal systems, regulatory approaches and levels of digital development. Those differences are not obstacles to cooperation. They are precisely why cooperation matters.

Throughout its history, APEC has never sought to impose a single model. Instead, it has provided a platform where economies exchange practical experience, learn from one another and improve interoperability while respecting different domestic approaches.

That collaborative approach has helped the region navigate successive waves of technological change, and it will remain just as important as data becomes an increasingly strategic resource for the AI era.

Preparing for What Comes Next

One lesson stayed with me after our discussions in Chengdu.

When APEC established its telecommunications workstream in 1990, nobody was planning for generative AI. Nobody imagined smartphones would become powerful computers in our pockets or that data would emerge as one of the world’s most valuable economic resources.

Yet the institutions and relationships built over those years made it easier for economies to adapt as each new wave of technology arrived.

Thirty-five years from now, today’s technologies may seem just as primitive as fax machines and dial-up internet now appear to us. AI will continue to evolve. New technologies will emerge. New policy questions will replace those we debate today.

The real challenge, therefore, is not simply preparing for the next technological breakthrough. It is building the habits of cooperation that allow us to respond together when that breakthrough arrives.

Thinking back to my own experience of being scammed online, I realised that the lesson was never really about technology. The scam itself was enabled by technology. The solution, however, depends on trust.

Trust in secure digital systems. Trust in institutions. Trust that innovation can continue while people remain protected. Technology will continue to change, just as it always has. Trust must evolve with it.

If the past three decades have taught us anything, it is that lasting digital prosperity depends not only on innovation, but also on our willingness to cooperate, learn from one another and build confidence across borders.

That may prove to be APEC’s greatest contribution to the digital future of the Asia-Pacific.