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Exploring Trust and Innovation: a Focus on AI and Digital Infrastructure at Davos 2025

On January 21, 2025, digitalswitzerland hosted a series of high-profile events on occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos. From a morning discussion on trustworthy digital infrastructure, to a lunch session on AI for digital characters, and concluding with an evening focused on trust in the age of AI, the day highlighted Switzerland’s opportunities in shaping the future of digital innovation.

Breakfast Event: Trustworthy Digital Infrastructure as a core element of the future economic growth and wealth in Switzerland

The agenda featured a series of keynotes and discussions:

Cybersecurity: A Global Imperative
Maya Bundt, a seasoned board member and expert in cybersecurity, set the stage with an overview of the evolving threat landscape. She highlighted the significance of the national cyber strategy and emphasised the need for international cooperation in setting cyber norms. Her insights underscored that cybersecurity is a prerequisite for trust in digital infrastructure.

Humane Technology: Designing for Humanity
Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, challenged the audience to rethink how we build and deploy technology. Drawing on themes from his speech “The AI Dilemma”, he argued for systems designed to serve humanity rather than exploit it—a call to action for ethical innovation.

Privacy and Ethics in Action
Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal, shared how ethical principles can drive the design of digital tools. Signal’s approach to privacy and user control serves as a blueprint for creating infrastructure that prioritises trust without compromising functionality.

The Role of Standards in a Connected World
Seth Dobbs, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), underlined the importance of international standards in order to foster accessibility, security, and privacy, and to ensure a balanced approach to global digital challenges. His emphasis on multi-stakeholder collaboration resonated with Switzerland’s commitment to neutrality and open governance.

Panel Discussion: Building Switzerland’s Digital Legacy
Moderated by digitalswitzerland CEO Franziska Barmettler, the panel brought together these thought leaders to discuss Switzerland’s role in the global digital ecosystem. Key takeaways included:

Lunch Event: Artificial Intelligence for Digital Characters

The digitalswitzerland VIP Lunch shifted the focus to the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence for so-called digital characters: software entities that look and act like real or imaginary creatures in a computer-generated environment. Held at the UBS Pavilion, the event welcomed around 60 participants from business, academia, and government to explore how AI is transforming human-computer interaction.

Digital Einstein: A Case Study in AI and Human Interaction
Markus Gross, Chief Digital Officer at Disney Research Zurich and a key contributor to ETH’s Digital Einstein Platform, shared the story of how AI technologies bring the Swiss physicist and most famous ETH alumnus back to life. Through natural language processing, speech synthesis, and animation, Digital Einstein offers interactive and lifelike dialogue experiences. Gross emphasised how these advancements are shaping industries from education to entertainment, offering a glimpse into the potential of digital immortality.

Switzerland as a Hub for Responsible AI
ETH Zürich President Joël Mesot built on this theme, calling for Switzerland to leverage its strengths—such as robust privacy laws and interdisciplinary collaboration—to lead in AI innovation. Highlighting the supercomputer ALPS in Lugano as a practical example, Mesot argued that Switzerland must move beyond theoretical research to create tangible, scalable solutions.

The Human Factor in AI Development
Catrin Hinkel, CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, underscored that AI must be shaped by human values, with governance and security forming the foundation of responsible AI. She is convinced that collaboration is the key to a meaningful design of these foundations.

Panel Discussion: Advancing AI in Switzerland

Moderated by Chris Luebkeman, Head of Strategic Foresight at ETH Zurich, the panel featured a spirited discussion on Switzerland’s AI potential. Some key insights:

As CEO Franziska Barmettler shared in her closing remarks, the discussions at the VIP Lunch are just the beginning of digitalswitzerland’s work in the field of AI. Future initiatives include:

Evening Event: Trust in the Age of AI

With the spotlight on digital trust and artificial intelligence (AI), the digitalswitzerland VIP evening event provided a platform to explore the evolving relationship between trust and technology, and to celebrate a significant milestone for the Swiss Digital Initiative’s (SDI) Digital Trust Label.

The Intersection of AI and Digital Trust
As digitalswitzerland President Andreas Meyer highlighted in his opening remarks, trust is no longer just an ethical consideration—it is a cornerstone for AI adoption. With the rapid integration of AI into digital services, the stakes for ensuring transparency, accountability, and user confidence have never been higher.

Manoj Mehta, President of Cognizant EMEA, underlined this point, sharing how trust forms the backbone of successful digital transformation. Mehta emphasised that building trustworthy AI requires more than just technology; it demands a focus on people, processes, and governance.

Panel Discussion: Implementing Trustworthy AI
Moderated by Nicolas Zahn, Director of the Swiss Digital Initiative, the panel brought together various experts from the field:

Key takeaways from the panel included:

The Digital Trust Label: Start of a new chapter
The event also marked the launch of the next chapter for the Digital Trust Label, a project launched by the Swiss Digital Initiative. The handover of the label to SGS, a global leader in testing, inspection, and certification, was celebrated as a natural evolution of the project. Doris Leuthard, SDI President, and Jan Meemken of SGS shared the label’s journey from an innovative concept to a verifiable standard.

Meemken emphasised SGS’s commitment to maintaining the label’s high standards while scaling its impact internationally. By incorporating AI-specific criteria, the label now provides actionable tools for organisations to ensure trustworthiness in the intelligence age. The partnership with SGS signals the initiative’s readiness to meet the growing global demand for trusted digital services.

Thank you and see you next year!
The team at digitalswitzerland would like to thank all the members, partners, and speakers who contributed their time and expertise to these events. Your participation was instrumental in fostering thoughtful discussions on trust, AI, and Switzerland’s role in digital innovation. Looking ahead, we are keen to build on these conversations and work towards turning ideas into practical initiatives over the coming year. We look forward to continuing this journey together and to welcoming you back to Davos next year for further discussions and collaboration.