What trends are shaping trust and safety programs in 2025?

Episode topics

00:00 What makes trust and safety programs different today?

01:04 Why are trust and safety programs essential for digital customer experience?

02:18 How do trust and safety issues affect consumer confidence?

05:18 What are the main cost pressures facing trust and safety programs?

07:10 What challenges do brands face in keeping up with technological change?

09:02 Why is regulatory compliance a growing concern?

12:50 How are fraud detection capabilities evolving?

14:34 How are brands prioritizing know your customer (KYC) programs?

17:06 How are content moderation programs changing?

19:45 What makes identity verification a top priority for brands?

21:10 How can brands stay ahead of emerging threats?

23:23 Why should trust and safety be viewed as an investment rather than cost?

26:59 What value do third-party providers bring to trust and safety programs?

29:12 What trust and safety competencies will brands need in 2025?

31:32 Where can you learn more about trust and safety trends?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Peter Ryan: What we're talking about today is very different from what it was even a few years ago.

[00:00:04] Ljubiša Velikić: A well-executed trust and safety program can be a huge differentiator for a brand in a competitive market.

[00:00:10] Peter Ryan: These problems, these challenges, these obstacles are only gonna get worse so the best defense is a good offense.

[00:00:19] Robert Zirk: Today on Questions for now, we explore how brands are protecting their customers and how they're adapting to meet critical trust and safety challenges. I'm joined by Peter Ryan, president and principal analyst at Ryan Strategic Advisory, and Ljubiša Velikić, vice president of trust and safety at TELUS Digital, as we ask: What trends are shaping trust and safety programs in 2025?

[00:00:51] Robert Zirk: Welcome to Questions for now, a podcast from TELUS Digital, where we ask today's big questions in digital customer experience. I'm Robert Zirk.

[00:01:04] Robert Zirk: Trust and safety programs and services are a cornerstone of today's digital customer experiences. These essential systems and strategies protect brands and their customers alike from bad actors, safeguarding the customer experience through fraud detection, content moderation and data security measures while ensuring compliance with evolving regulations.

[00:01:28] To gain insight into how customer experience decision makers are shaping their trust and safety programs, TELUS Digital commissioned Ryan Strategic Advisory, a firm specializing in market research, insights and strategy for outsourcing and CX organizations, to conduct a custom global survey in the first quarter of 2025.

[00:01:50] The 819 respondents represent organizations across Western Europe, North America and Asia Pacific with annual revenues ranging from 10 million to more than $5 billion dollars. The findings are detailed in TELUS Digital's report, Safety in numbers: Trust and safety trends, 2025, which is available for download at telusdigital.com and we've included a link in the show notes as well.

[00:02:18] Peter Ryan is the president and principal analyst of Ryan Strategic Advisory, and to set the stage for the trends in trust and safety that we're about to discuss, he spoke to why these programs play a fundamental role in the digital customer experience, relating to his own perspective as a consumer.

[00:02:36] Peter Ryan: If I've recently seen that a particular organization has been hit by some type of a hack or has had some type of a problem related to fraud, the likelihood is that I'm probably not gonna wanna do business with them for quite some time. Organizations have to make certain that they are going to be as impervious as possible to these types of threats that are coming forward.

[00:02:59] If you think that you are watertight in terms of your ability to manage trust, safety and security, well, guess what? The bad guys, the bad people, are probably one step ahead of you. As I was talking with someone not long ago, they said it's really a case of reinforcing that perception of security, doing everything that's possible that you can to lock down all the different elements of customer data and making sure that the consumers know that you're doing this.

[00:03:24] Robert Zirk: For these reasons, Peter emphasized that maintaining customer trust remains a critical concern for brands.

[00:03:32] Peter Ryan: Over the course of the past several years, when we ask in our buyer survey, "What are the top three biggest worries you've got in terms of running your own CX operation for your enterprise?", trust and safety elements are always going to come up. They'll always be part of the top three.

[00:03:49] You don't see a week go by without some high profile cyber hack that seems to be happening. This is something that's become, I don't want to say commonplace, but it's something that's become very much an occurrence that we're becoming desensitized to. And you become desensitized until it's your data that's being hit.

[00:04:07] Robert Zirk: Ljubiša Velikić is the vice president of trust and safety at TELUS Digital. He's noticed more and more CX leaders are considering customer trust to be an essential component of their CX strategy.

[00:04:19] Ljubiša Velikić: Trust and safety programs are absolutely essential in the digital landscape because they directly influence how customers perceive and interact with brands.

[00:04:28] And then, in this era where cyber threats, fraud, content are a growing concern, customers want to feel that they are confident the platform they're on or the product they're using works to ensure their safety. By building and maintaining trust, brands strengthen their reputation in the market and create loyal and positive customer relationships.

[00:04:51] Robert Zirk: When it comes to the challenges brands face in effectively delivering trust and safety solutions, TELUS Digital's Safety in numbers report highlights several key areas of concern for CX leaders. The top challenge CX leaders identified, garnering 27% of votes from respondents, were cost pressures. Peter isn't surprised by this statistic, noting financial constraints are an ongoing issue for CX departments.

[00:05:18] Peter Ryan: We've talked about tight resources and these solutions do cost money. And with so many organizations indicating that, quite frankly, this year and next year have the potential to be lean in regards to the resources they have, dealing with solutions and human talent that might be costly is going to be a bit of a challenge. We've been seeing cost pressures mount up on the operations of captive CX for quite some time. My view on it is it's gonna be very tough to square that circle because my experience is, for so many different organizations: when the going gets tough, when share prices drop, when there's less available resource, the boardroom will invariably say one of the first places to get hit will be the CX division.

[00:06:04] Robert Zirk: While Ljubiša has seen many business leaders reduce operational costs by leveraging automation and AI technologies, he notes that human expertise is still crucial, not only to handle complex issues that require a thoughtful approach, but also to optimize the way technology is used to enhance trust and safety measures.

[00:06:23] Ljubiša Velikić: Even as AI and automation play a bigger role, I think that human expertise remains indispensable in this area, especially for tasks that require that nuance in judgment.

[00:06:33] Integrating automation, new AI models with that human expertise is how people can continue to optimize their programs. And reducing costs is something that we also continuously focus on with our clients — making sure that we are focusing on process improvements, making sure that we are able to also bring them end-to-end solutions through partnering with the right software companies that we can bring to our clients and help them solve challenges that they may not have solved yet. I think this combination allows for more efficient operations but then also addresses these more complex and evolving challenges.

[00:07:10] Robert Zirk: Many CX leaders cited elements of technology as their brand's biggest trust and safety challenge. For 20% of respondents. It was integrating trust and safety solutions within their existing systems and architecture, while another 21% cited technical complexity.

[00:07:28] Peter Ryan: If we talk a little bit about what it means from the perspective of data breaches and cyber attacks, we saw that that was probably one of the biggest areas of concern. Now, the ability to actually manage those and to be able to prevent them and then to deal with it when they actually happen, that's gonna be very, very difficult as well because so many organizations are cash-strapped and won't necessarily have more budget or more resource to deal with it.

[00:07:53] Robert Zirk: 16% of respondents highlighted a lack of internal expertise as their brand's biggest challenge.

[00:07:59] Peter Ryan: Technology, especially the more sophisticated ones, are certainly going to require a sophisticated level of talent to manage. And then, you've got some of these legacy architectures that are out there that are in place and being able to take perhaps very new cutting edge solutions and integrate those into systems that might have been around an organization for quite some time.

[00:08:21] Robert Zirk: If new solutions aren't compatible out of the box with existing systems, it can become a major pain point for brands looking to modernize their security while maintaining normal operations.

[00:08:34] In the Safety in numbers report, 32% of CX decision makers identified "keeping up with technological change due to a lack of budget" as one of the biggest challenges their business faces in maintaining a safe and secure digital environment.

[00:08:49] Another area of change that's important for leaders to keep up with are national and international regulations. 10% of CX leaders cited compliance as a major concern for their brands.

[00:09:02] Peter Ryan: Being able to keep up and maintain an understanding about what is going to be required from a regulatory perspective and then being compliant with that is also a very, very big challenge. And I'll go back to my benchmarking report that I referenced a few minutes ago. You know, when we talk a little bit about what some of the biggest challenges that exist out there from the standpoint of running captive operations, something that came through right from the forefront was exactly that: the ability to manage the evolving levels of compliance and finding the talent to do so.

[00:09:35] Robert Zirk: In his conversations with CX leaders, Peter has noticed a common thread: CX leaders recognize how critical trust and safety programs are to their organizations, but they're concerned about how effectively they can maintain and improve them, citing limited resources and the need to control costs, both of which were themes reflected by the respondents of the survey on trust and safety trends.

[00:10:00] Peter Ryan: I think there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of indecision. Where we run into some challenges is when we take a look at enterprises right now and the resources that the contact centers and the CX leaders have at their disposal.

[00:10:13] Robert Zirk: Peter went on to explain that, though the threat landscape is always changing, brands have finite budgets to manage their trust, safety, and security programs.

[00:10:23] Peter Ryan: That also includes managing elements around trust, safety and security. So my question is: how are they supposed to stay one step ahead? How are they supposed to be in a position where they can ensure maximum compliance if they don't have the resources to do so?

[00:10:39] And it's not a case where these types of solutions, these types of security solutions are going to become more affordable. If anything, they're gonna become even more complex and potentially even more costly. So if I'm the leader of a customer experience management division within a company, and the boardroom is putting significant pressure on me to manage my costs but also maintain maximum levels of security, that's a big challenge. So that level of trepidation and nervousness and security, I think are elements that are gonna really be coming through over the course of 2025 and into 2026 for a lot of CX leaders who are gonna be having some sleepless nights.

[00:11:18] Robert Zirk: While these challenges may seem daunting, the good news is that organizations are getting smarter about how they protect their customers and employees. Ljubiša has seen a big advancement in the tools that are available to safeguard platforms and communities.

[00:11:33] Ljubiša Velikić: Companies are focusing on building out products and detection models which are very accurately predicting certain types of fraud behaviors. They're able to stop them earlier than would've been the case a few years ago.

[00:11:47] With that also, we work heavily on ensuring that humans who work in this space are also upskilling, being able to use all these different types of tools to do their work more efficiently to prevent fraud and then where fraud occurs to actually react quickly enough to prevent more customers from being defrauded.

[00:12:09] Robert Zirk: Peter acknowledged the challenges CX leaders face with limited resources, but stressed that these challenges need to be met to ensure safe and secure digital environments.

[00:12:20] Peter Ryan: This is not going to be an easy task and these are not challenges that I think people need to be shying away from or burying their head in the sand around. You've gotta deal with it. You've gotta find the right talent, you've gotta find the right solutions. But again, it's that vicious circle about trouble being able to access the right resources.

[00:12:36] Robert Zirk: The survey commissioned by TELUS Digital examined four specific categories of trust and safety solutions: fraud detection, KYC or know your customer, content moderation and identity verification.

[00:12:50] Let's start with fraud detection, an area in which two thirds of respondents plan to increase their investment within the next 12 months. Ljubiša noted that many companies are leveraging AI and machine learning to identify fraud attempts in real time and augment their human capabilities.

[00:13:08] Ljubiša Velikić: So in fraud detection, for those more complex cases, really having these teams in place to review those really quickly, be able to either prevent further fraud from happening, deal with cases that have maybe occurred already and continuously help improve these detection models. For many of our clients, we are that layer of protection where their AI models are surfacing these more complex cases to us to review.

[00:13:35] Robert Zirk: The rise in fraud attempts has outpaced what human teams alone can handle. That's why 44% of organizations now use automated solutions to combat fraud. Peter commends brands who are taking on this proactive approach.

[00:13:50] Peter Ryan: Organizations that can augment what the agent is doing are going to be the ones that are gonna succeed because agents wanna do a good job or people within the back office wanna do a good job.

[00:14:00] The technology, if it's in place, it can be deployed in that manner, it's gonna make a big difference, not just in terms of executing flawlessly, which we know everybody would like to do, but also retaining that talent because they're not gonna feel the anxiety or they're not gonna feel the pressure.

[00:14:16] Robert Zirk: Fraud detection is closely linked to another critical aspect of trust and safety: know your customer or KYC programs. In TELUS Digital's survey, 34% of respondents cited regulatory pressures as their main reason for prioritizing KYC initiatives.

[00:14:34] Peter sees jurisdictions playing an increased role in regulating the management of customer data, highlighting the GDPR in the European Union as one example.

[00:14:44] Peter Ryan: I remember when GDPR was first brought up and nobody knew what you were talking about, but think about as we got closer and closer to the implementation date, everybody was talking about it and why? Well, because it was so important. How you collect customer data, how you store customer data, how you manage it, what can be accessed.

[00:15:02] If a customer wants their data expunged and so forth, well then, guess what? All of a sudden you've got different jurisdictions around the world that are putting in place very similar legislation, very similar regulatory frameworks. That's going to be very tough. And these frameworks do not get easier over time. They get harder. That is just the reality.

[00:15:21] I was just down in a nearshore destination just a few weeks ago doing a conference, speaking, and something that was really interesting was a government leader stood up and was talking about how this particular country was gonna be bringing in their own legislation when it came to managing customer information, knowing the customer, and they said, we're gonna be basing this on the framework of the European Union, GDPR. You almost felt like the air was coming outta the balloon in that room 'cause everybody was thinking, "Wow, what am I gonna have to comply with?"

[00:15:50] Robert Zirk: Peter emphasized that despite the complexities organizations face in strengthening their KYC programs, compliance isn't optional. It's a fundamental requirement for conducting business.

[00:16:02] Peter Ryan: One of the things that I've pulled up in my research over the years is the extent to which so many organizations are underinvested in sophisticated analytics capabilities and, with the best will in the world, the less sophisticated your analytics platforms are, the more vulnerable they're potentially going to be in terms of that data collection process, in terms of the storage process, in terms of how you manage an individual's data over the course of a period of time.

[00:16:27] And it goes back to the resourcing like we talked about earlier. If you don't have those budgets in place to be able to collect the information, in terms of analyzing it and in terms of storing it. If you don't have the most modern offerings that you would like to have, are you gonna be compliant or not?

[00:16:44] It's gonna be tough, but if you're not compliant, you can't do it, which means you've gotta invest in them. So some of these regulatory pressures definitely are out there and are something that I don't think anybody should underestimate.

[00:16:55] Robert Zirk: Having examined trends in fraud detection and KYC programs, let's move on to the third trust and safety category we'll look into further: content moderation.

[00:17:06] Content moderation involves screening user-generated content to ensure it complies with laws and platform and community standards. It's a crucial practice for safeguarding brand reputations, building customer trust and improving the overall user experience.

[00:17:23] 94% of respondents across all industries have content moderation programs. The survey also revealed that content moderation has a higher percentage of human-led services relative to the other three categories.

[00:17:38] Millions of posts, messages, photos and videos are created by users on a daily basis. Even a fraction of that number can still be a volume that would be difficult for humans alone to keep up with.

[00:17:52] Ljubiša explained how content moderation has evolved from simple rule-based systems to advanced systems that are better able to analyze context, sentiment and intent.

[00:18:03] Ljubiša Velikić: We have this upscaled human-in-the-loop system where people are looking at situations that require either local context or more nuanced understanding of either discussions or types of content that people might be posting online. That could be video, voice or text format. With regulations becoming stricter, I think that the piece that requires human involvement in that area is really crucial and it grows in importance and it requires higher level domain expertise.

[00:18:34] Robert Zirk: Peter acknowledges that while humans have traditionally played an important role in keeping the internet safe, it's also important to ensure that human moderators themselves are protected. He advises brands to leverage technology wherever possible to ensure harmful content is filtered out and removed before it can reach human moderators.

[00:18:55] Peter Ryan: As more technological tools come forward, it's gonna be much more important for an organization to be able to avail themselves of some of those solutions and offerings.

[00:19:06] I think that the people that are involved in content moderation deserve a tremendous amount of credit, but they also deserve tools in place that will be able to ensure that they're not subjected to emotional stress.

[00:19:20] Robert Zirk: Last but not least, and an area that's closely related to fraud detection, is identity or ID verification. Among the four key program areas in the report, ID verification ranked highest both in terms of leaders considering it a priority and increasing their investment. Peter highlighted some of the key factors driving organizations to prioritize identity verification programs:

[00:19:45] Peter Ryan: Whether it's a consumer having to validate who they are to an agent or an individual walking into a CX facility to validate their position, their person, and what they're supposed to be doing, it's just crucial. And I've seen this. I have gone to facilities in different parts of the world where literally you have got to go through two to three verifications before you can actually get that computer turned on and start working. That just makes sense.

[00:20:10] When it comes down to the individual consumer, the ID verification systems that are in place, if you've forgotten your password or if, say, you've forgotten your PIN for your bank card, there's a reason why these are in place.

[00:20:22] Robert Zirk: Peter and Ljubiša both highlighted the importance of finding the right balance between maintaining a seamless customer experience and enforcing robust security measures.

[00:20:33] Peter Ryan: Sometimes they're cumbersome, and I think this is where a lot of organizations are trying to make the right investments to make them a lot less cumbersome, because people get angry. And if you get angry at having to prove who you are, and it's taking a tremendous amount of time, going back and forth with various email accounts or text messages with codes you've gotta enter in, it can be frustrating.

[00:20:53] We're only as good as the technology where it's at today, so as the technology evolves and gets better and more efficient, so will ID verification.

[00:21:01] Robert Zirk: Peter emphasized that the threats that necessitate strong trust and safety measures aren't going away and are only increasing in number and severity.

[00:21:10] Peter Ryan: I always like to be an optimist, but we also have to be pragmatists and realize that these threats are going to be ongoing. They're gonna get more challenging and the key here, again, is proactivity and for an organization to do what it can to inform itself. The leaders need to inform themselves what's out there, what are their solutions, what can they do in the near, medium and long term, plan for it and plan the resources around it, 'cause one of the things that drives me the most crazy, whether it's trust and safety or InfoSec…

[00:21:40] Robert Zirk: ...which is information security…

[00:21:42] Peter Ryan: ...it's when we hear "Yeah, we just weren't ready. We didn't know this was out there." If you do just a little bit of research, if you've talked to the right people, you can find out about this stuff.

[00:21:51] So many of these things are preventable in terms of data breaches, in terms of cyber hacks, in terms of IDs that are being compromised. It's almost just sad when you hear about it 'cause you just think to yourself, "Oh, what if somebody had actually done just a little bit more?"

[00:22:06] Robert Zirk: We've explored some of the trends within four key areas of trust and safety: fraud detection, KYC programs, content moderation and ID verification. We've also covered the challenges brands face in maintaining and enhancing these programs.

[00:22:23] But despite those obstacles, Peter reiterates that brands wanting to maintain customer trust have no choice but to address these challenges head on. To counter the cost pressures their departments face, Peter suggests CX leaders take on a more innovative approach to the challenges that they're up against.

[00:22:40] Peter Ryan: It might mean looking towards a third party on the CX services side that has these capabilities, that can provide them with these capabilities, maybe using a different model than if they were to acquire the software on their own.

[00:22:54] Maybe it's a case of being able to access that talent using a third party as opposed to going directly to the technology vendor.

[00:23:02] I think the key thing here is the people who are leading the organizations are gonna need to be a heck of a lot smarter about what they do and a little bit more innovative and think outside the box, to use a cliché.

[00:23:13] Robert Zirk: And while there are costs to trust and safety programs, Ljubiša challenges leaders to reframe their view of trust and safety to be an investment that can drive business growth.

[00:23:23] Ljubiša Velikić: I've heard this question and phrase used quite often. "Hey, is trust and safety just a cost center?" I also think we need to perhaps just lean into the fact, yes, it is a cost center. Many types of functions within companies and organizations are a cost center. However, it also is a key business investment.

[00:23:42] So, in my mind, by prioritizing the work that trust and safety teams do and the programs that they put in place, you are working on enhancing your customer satisfaction, the loyalty of your customers, which are critical drivers of growth for many businesses. And we see that, with many of our clients, consumers increasingly look for brands that protect their privacy, safeguard their data, ensures a safe digital environment.

[00:24:07] A well-executed trust and safety program can be a huge differentiator for a brand in a competitive market.

[00:24:13] Robert Zirk: And an external partner like TELUS Digital can help brands alleviate the challenges they face in evolving their trust and safety programs.

[00:24:22] Ljubiša Velikić: We really focus on client-specific solutions. We provide tailored solutions, scalable, we emphasize the importance of human expertise but obviously embrace technology to make sure that we are solving challenges for our clients.

[00:24:38] While AI and automation are essential for increasing efficiency, at TELUS Digital we recognize that coupling that tech-enabled human-in-the-loop process will still continue to be necessary, especially in complex cases. Whether it's reviewing flagged content or verifying edge cases in fraud detection or ensuring compliance with regulations, human expertise remains crucial and TELUS Digital places strong emphasis on continuing to evolve, continuing to upscale and also make sure that we are providing the right focus on moderator wellbeing. We can understand the need, understand that content moderation can be taxing at times. We put the right protections in place and focus on providing the right type of support for our teams. That balanced approach is really important in this area.

[00:25:32] Robert Zirk: Ljubiša also highlights TELUS Digital's ability to help brands evolve their policies and processes by spotting trends and developing tactics based on its expertise across different industries.

[00:25:43] He used the example of an account takeover, a prevalent tactic used by fraudsters to gain unauthorized access to an individual's account. Once they get hold of one account, they could then attempt to steal login credentials to other accounts, spread malware, gain access to connected financial accounts or impersonate the victim to commit financial fraud.

[00:26:05] Ljubiša Velikić: That happens across these platforms without some of these platforms realizing it may be happening in one place and affecting another.

[00:26:13] And that's where I think the learnings that we can get from clients across the industries where we are involved is really crucial to help them understand the bad actor behavior across platforms and put in place the right types of protections. Looking at how does abusive behavior translate from, say, gaming environments into social media and then potentially even beyond or, for example, how does account takeover on a social media platform result in ultimately customers from a bank defrauded and to material losses is something that I think there's still a lot of room for all of us to understand.

[00:26:52] Robert Zirk: Peter noted that third-party providers have become more proactive about InfoSec and trust and safety measures.

[00:26:59] Peter Ryan: With more and more enterprises that are working in some way, shape or form with a third-party provider, this is a great opportunity to avail themselves of the capabilities of these subject matter expertise elements, of these niche understandings that the BPOs will bring to the table and to really figure out what they can do to take on some of these capabilities that they so desperately need without using that traditional model.

[00:27:24] More and more enterprises are becoming aware that their CX services partner are not there to just deliver frontline CX. They've got so much more to offer. They've got so much more on the go. They've got so much more that they can provide in terms of driving efficiencies, driving better outcomes, and in this case, I'd say providing that level of impermeability with regards to, say, InfoSec or even bringing best practices to the table when it comes to trust and safety.

[00:27:53] Robert Zirk: Peter referenced Ryan Strategic Advisory's annual benchmarking report, which shows that the two capabilities businesses value most in BPO partners are compliance management and information security management expertise.

[00:28:06] Peter Ryan: One of the things that we've picked up the past few years in our benchmarking report is when an enterprise is looking to a BPO, one of the most important things that a CX services player can bring to the table is compliant management expertise, and believe it or not, also expertise when it comes to managing information security.

[00:28:24] Now, the beautiful part is most of the players in the CX services space, at least what I've been seeing, the ones that are really adding value are the ones that are bringing on individuals that can provide those blueprints, those strategic elements of direction that the enterprise needs.

[00:28:41] It's not just the people that are implementing the technology or managing the ongoing technology solutions. It's also the people that can come to the table, that have got the subject matter expertise, that have worked in this domain for quite some time, who understand the lay of the land and can walk into an enterprise no matter what the sector, no matter what the country, and just say, "Here's where you're sitting, here's what we recommend that you need to do and here's how we're gonna help you achieve that."

[00:29:06] Robert Zirk: Looking ahead, I asked Peter what trust and safety competencies brands will be looking to build in 2025.

[00:29:12] Peter Ryan: It's a really good question, and I think that it's gonna be adapting to those realities of what trust and safety is going to be facing from some of the challenges.

[00:29:22] Going back to what we talked about a little while ago, what we're talking about today is very different from what it was even a few years ago, and having people that have got experience, that have seen this domain evolve over the course of quite some period of time, but who equally speaking can anticipate what the problems are going to be, who are keeping their ear to the ground and are developing solutions to anticipate what some of these problems are going to be.

[00:29:48] That's what's gonna be crucial in regards to the CX services player, who they need to recruit and what the enterprise, when they go into work to the CX services player, will need to be looking to avail themselves of.

[00:29:59] Robert Zirk: As companies large and small embrace digital experiences, Ljubiša foresees a growing demand for robust trust and safety programs and services.

[00:30:08] Ljubiša Velikić: Whether that is community safety through content moderation, account security, financial crime and compliance, brand protection, all of these areas will remain critical for brands and for most companies in the world, really. As more and more small businesses move a lot of their activity online, many of them will face some of these challenges. And in my mind, trust and safety will become an even more critical part of the journey for many of these companies and it will drive further specialization in all of these areas where people will be able to continue to develop domain expertise and create new types of jobs in the future that focus on this critical field of work.

[00:30:56] Robert Zirk: And Peter reiterated how important it is for brands to ensure trust and safety measures are continually being improved on.

[00:31:03] Peter Ryan: These problems, these challenges, these obstacles are only gonna get worse. I've mentioned it before. The best thing that any organization and any leader of an organization can do is to make sure that they're ready. There's no two ways about it. These are elements that are going to become more and more pervasive so the best solution, the best defense is a good offense.

[00:31:32] Robert Zirk: For more detailed insights on how brands are prioritizing and investing in their trust and safety programs, download the Safety in numbers report from TELUS Digital. You can find it at telusdigital.com and there's a link in the description as well.

[00:31:46] Thank you so much to Peter Ryan and Ljubiša Velikić for joining me and sharing their insights today. And thank you for listening to Questions for now, a TELUS Digital podcast.

[00:31:57] For more insights on today's big questions in digital customer experience, be sure to follow Questions for now on your podcast player of choice to get the latest episodes as soon as they're released.

[00:32:08] I'm Robert Zirk, and until next time, that's all for now.

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