The opening keynote at Digital Trust Hui Taumata 2026 explored how Aotearoa can embrace AI and digital trust while protecting individual agency, Māori rights and community governance.

Drummond Reed outlined the emergence of verifiable trust infrastructure: systems designed to help people, organisations and AI agents prove relationships, authority and accountability without relying on a small number of centralised platforms. He argued that the discussion needs to move beyond identity alone and towards the value that trusted relationships can enable.

“Identity is not what matters. It’s the trust that it produces and the value that can come from that.”

Dr Karaitiana Taiuru brought a tikanga-informed perspective, emphasising that identity is not simply a technical or Western construct. For Māori, it is connected to whakapapa, relationships, place and community. Trust is built through knowing where someone comes from and how they relate to others — not by asking for a document.

“It’s really important that we have community governance, because our governance systems to verify ID doesn’t match a Western form of identity.”

The speakers also considered AI agents and the need to establish who an agent is acting for, what authority it holds and how accountability can be verified. Open standards, cryptographic verification and community-led governance were presented as essential building blocks.

The keynote made clear that trusted infrastructure cannot be imposed from the top down. It must enable meaningful consent, support many communities and give people control over their own relationships and information.