A lot of the public conversation around AI still focuses on capabilities: what AI tools and agents can do, how intelligent they are becoming and how quickly they might reshape work. But what’s come up over the last few episodes of Shaken Not Burned is whether we’re looking at the wrong concerns. The real challenge may not simply be the technology, but how we integrate it in practice.

Because once AI systems begin acting on behalf of people and organisations – making payments, accessing services, managing workflows and interacting across platforms –another layer of questions suddenly appears beneath the surface.

How do systems know who – or what – is acting? What permissions exist? Who authorised the action? What infrastructure allows different systems to trust one another? And are the identity systems we already rely on actually prepared for a much more dynamic and autonomous digital environment?

In this week’s episode, Felicia Jackson speaks with Erika Maslauskaite, co-founder and CEO of alongID, about digital identity, interoperability and the growing importance of trust infrastructure in the AI era.

The internet was really built without a coherent identity system underpinning it. What we have today evolved in fragments – platform logins, payment systems, verification checks and compliance layers – and it’s not clear whether those systems are fit for a world of increasingly independent AI.

As so often with the subject of AI, the conversation doesn’t stay confined to one thing. It’s not so much a question of “digital identity” as a technical topic, but a wide-ranging discussion of the increasingly important questions around governance, privacy, inclusion, institutional readiness and the tension between convenience, security and control.

This episode explores why fragmented infrastructure creates enormous challenges once AI systems begin operating across borders and platforms, and why trust may increasingly become one of the defining operational issues of the next phase of technological change.

It also touches on something deeper: the idea that digital systems are no longer separate from society itself. They are increasingly becoming extensions of it – carrying with them the same tensions around power, legitimacy, participation and inequality that already exist offline.

As the third episode in SNB’s AI arc, this conversation moves beyond implementation challenges into the growing reality of AI-enabled business transformation – suggesting that the future of digital systems may ultimately depend on how well institutions, infrastructure and human trust evolve together.

Further reading:

• Measuring up: Evaluating claims about AI and productivity in the UK public sector Ada Lovelace Institute

• AI Won't Transform Government Without Governable Data Tony Blair Institute

• AI ambitions collide with governments data reality Aker Systems

• 5 Digital Identity Predictions for 2026 DAON

• Agentic AI and the Interoperability Imperative TechRadar Pro

• The State of AI Trust in 2026: Shifting to the Agentic Era McKinsey

• Agentic AI Pushes Financial Sector Toward Continuous Identity Biometric Update

• How to build consumer trust in AI agents Checkout.com

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