It’s a rare thing for dinner conversation with my youngest to extend beyond a few grunts, laughs and sighs. Not least because I’ll often ask about school at a time when he’s trying to stop thinking about it. So when I recently asked what he was looking forward to before school’s out, he barely looked up.
“We’re rehearsing for a play,” he said. “The Twelve Labours of Heracles.”
One question led to another, and before long we were side by side at the kitchen table, quizzing Alexa. We landed on the topic of astrology where he discovered he’s a Capricorn.
"The Goat," he said. "Greatest of all time."
I laughed. He sighed.
Two Universal Truths
We kept going. Astronomy, astrology. Which one’s science, which one’ stories. How the universe works and how we might fit into it. And for a moment, we both just sat with that. Then, having had enough of me, he made a run for the Xbox. I was left at the table, the conversation lingering.
Just a week before, I’d been part of dinner conversation hosted by the fearless Jackie Cooper, alongside some equally bold and pioneering client leaders.
The topic was brand trust. What stayed with me was a shared sense of how the frameworks we once relied on to make decisions, to communicate purpose, to earn belief, carried a new weight.
We've shifted from stories to systems, from myth to math. But even now, even with dashboards and data and digital twins, people still want to know: Does this future include me? Does it reflect what matters to me?
This got me thinking about what it means to innovate for a future people can believe in.
Here, so much of what surfaced in both dinner conversations talked to two universal truths. One that explains another that can interpret. One built on systems and rules, the other helps us locate ourselves within these.
That distinction matters. Because in today’s brand landscape, leaders are being asked to hold to both.
Moral imagination and emotional fluency
The latest 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me makes it clear: Trust is no longer a rational equation. It’s relational. Consumers expect brands to meet functional needs and emotional expectations. They want clarity with connection. Data and direction.
62% say it’s important for brands to help them feel optimistic about the future. 61% say brands should help them do good in the world. 53% assume the worst if a brand stays silent on societal issues. And 51% say they’ll lose trust or be less likely to purchase if a brand ignores its obligation to act.
What does this mean for the most innovative brands? It means product is no longer enough. Nor is messaging. Innovation now includes moral imagination and emotional fluency. It means acting not only with speed, but with context.
When over half of consumers will penalise silence and disengage when values aren't mirrored, innovation can't be decoupled from trust. Trust is no longer the outcome of great innovation. It’s the entry point.
These numbers signal a shift in how belief today is earned and sustained. Which brings us back to my question of what it means to build innovation on a foundation of trust?
Reframing the Role of Trust
For trust to give a green light for speed, it must also become the force that keeps the momentum from collapsing. We often position trust as a metric. But maybe it functions more like infrastructure built on a shared sense of belonging. How people translate a future built on technological innovation by understanding their role in its promise.
In what the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report on Brand Trust describes as the shift from 'We to Me', not a rejection of community, but a rebalancing. As Jackie explained over dinner, people still care about collective good, just not ones that feel hollow: “If your brand disappeared tomorrow, and nobody noticed, you haven’t built a community”.
Universal truths yet multiple possibilities at play in this work. Trust as infrastructure, invitation, alignment. No single framing captures it all.
What is clear is that when trust is treated as transactional, it fractures under pressure. But when it’s practiced as a relationship, it endures. So maybe the real work is this:
- Build from emotional insight without losing strategic intent. What feels important shouldn’t cloud what must be done.
- See relevance as where engagement begins, not where responsibility ends. It signals attention, not assurance.
- Learn to navigate the truths, even when they pull in different directions. Disconnection is the problem, not complexity.
- Let trust determine the tempo, not just of messaging, but of making. Fast isn’t always forward and slow doesn’t mean stuck.
The Conviction to Act
Heracles didn’t choose his labours. They were handed to him. But he still had to act with both strength and conviction. Maybe that’s what’s being asked of innovation that moves at the speed of trust. It must keep with the pace of belief.
To move forward, clearly, courageously and in a way that makes people want to join. Not just because we’ve mapped the path. But because we’ve made it matter.
Sat Dayal is Managing Director of Technology at Edelman UK.