User Trust and Privacy Is Being Underestimated in Tech
September 23rd, 2026. Happy Wednesday. Let’s jump right in.
User Trust and Privacy Is Being Underestimated in Tech
There is an underlying theme found with the two Above Avalon articles published earlier this week. With both wearables and digital assistants, including agentic AI, user trust and privacy will become more important. The tech landscape is moving into verticals where the degree to which users trust the companies that they are engaging with will gain priority.
Positioning data privacy as a long-standing ideal underpinning product development will serve as an adoption and sales tailwind for Apple as they unveil intelligence-fueled features including Audio Intelligence, Visual Intelligence, and Siri AI. For many of Apple’s peers, privacy will serve as a headwind as business models have been built on extensive user data collection.
Across Silicon Valley, there has long been an effort to obfuscate user privacy. Companies have played fast and loose with the idea that one’s data is not being misused. We hear a lot about efforts to make one’s data secure. However, we don’t hear much about efforts to collect as little data from users as possible in the first place.
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