Results indicate a growing urgency among business leaders to strengthen their digital defenses, even as they face cost and complexity constraints
VANCOUVER, B.C. – New research commissioned by TELUS Digital Experience (TELUS Digital) (NYSE and TSX: TIXT), and conducted by global consultancy firm, Ryan Strategic Advisory, reveals that gaining customer trust has become a defining factor for providing exceptional customer experience (CX). In response, enterprises are ramping up their investments in Trust, Safety & Security services in 2025, leaning into hybrid approaches that combine human expertise with AI, and seeking third-party expertise with partners like TELUS Digital to build secure and scalable customer experiences.
A new TELUS Digital report, Safety in numbers, captures the full global survey results based on interviews with 800+ enterprise customer experience decision-makers in Western Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. Investments increasing in trust, safety and security
Survey results show a strong upward trend, with the majority of business leaders planning to significantly or somewhat increase investments in the following key areas of trust, safety and security over the next 12 months:
- ID verification (68%)
- Fraud detection (66%)
- Know your customer (KYC) processes used to verify and authenticate customer identities (60%)
- Content moderation (48%)
What’s driving the increase in prioritization of trust, safety and security capabilities?
CX leaders pointed to a range of external and internal forces that have pushed them to strengthen their enterprise’s trust, safety and security capabilities over the past year:
- 33% said they prioritized ID verification because of compliance demands, with 23% linking it to costly instances of fraud.
- 29% said they prioritized fraud detection because of costly instances of fraud, while 20% pointed to negative customer feedback.
- 34% said they prioritized KYC because of compliance demands, followed by 24% who pointed to fraud-related costs.
- 23% said they prioritized content moderation because of the availability of new technologies, and 22% due to compliance demands.
“Trust, safety and security have always been top of mind for CX leaders, but our latest survey shows they’ve become essential to delivering great customer experience,” said Peter Ryan, President and Principal Analyst, Ryan Strategic Advisory. “At the same time, leaders are facing pressure to tighten budgets while keeping pace with evolving compliance standards. These challenges are making it harder to access the technical talent needed to deliver and maintain effective solutions. CX providers are well positioned to ease those pressures by offering the expertise, people and technology to scale trust, safety and security operations as needed.”
Human expertise remains central to providing secure CX
To meet these growing demands, CX leaders said that their enterprises are leveraging both human expertise and advanced technologies to deliver their trust, safety and security services; however, the vast majority are delivered solely by humans or maintain a human-in-the loop vs technology alone:
- ID (Identification) verification: 79% of organizations involve humans, whether through a combination of human and technology-based processes (61%), or entirely human-sourced services (18%). Only 22% rely on technology alone.
- KYC (Know Your Customer): 61% of enterprises use humans when verifying a customer’s identity. 49% combine tech and human review, and 12% rely solely on human-led services. 39% use tech-only solutions.
- Content moderation: 65% of organizations include human involvement in this area (44% mixed + 21% human-led), while 34% use technology-only moderation.
- Fraud detection: 56% of organizations use human-involved approaches (40% mixed + 16% human-led), compared to 44% who rely purely on technology.
Although automation continues to grow, the survey shows that fully technology-led approaches in trust, safety and security are limited. This highlights the ongoing importance of human oversight and judgement when it comes to managing digital risk.
Key challenges to scaling trust, safety and security
When asked about the biggest challenges in maintaining a safe and secure digital environment for customers, CX leaders cited:
- Compliance with government/industry regulations (44%)
- Shortage of technical talent (39%)
- Internal threats (employee error/malicious intent) (34%)
- Fraud prevention complexity (34%)
When it comes to operating and delivering effective trust, safety and security across digital channels, cost is the top concern (27%). Other hurdles include technical complexity (21%), integration with existing systems (20%), lack of internal expertise (16%), and understanding and following regulations (10%).
“Even as enterprises face mounting economic challenges, maintaining a safe and secure environment for their customers remains a top priority, as the risks of not doing so are simply too high,” said Ljubiša Velikić, VP, Trust & Safety, TELUS Digital. “As organizations work to strengthen their approach to trust, safety and security, they need partners with deep expertise who also understand the complexities of implementing and scaling these solutions. It’s increasingly clear that flexibility, experience, and the ability to manage end-to-end delivery are essential to helping enterprises stay resilient in a constantly evolving risk landscape.”
Meeting trust, safety and security demands
The results point to a growing urgency among business leaders to strengthen their digital defenses, even as they face cost and complexity constraints. As threats evolve and regulations tighten, enterprises are looking for practical, flexible ways to secure their customer interactions, while balancing compliance, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency.
With trust, safety, and security now central to CX strategy, the ability to scale these capabilities effectively, whether through internal investment or with experienced partners, will be a key differentiator for enterprises.
By combining the best mix of human intervention and technology automation, TELUS Digital helps brands effectively manage risk and compliance by implementing end-to-end, tailored and future-proof CX solutions. With a proven track record of supporting some of the world’s largest enterprises, TELUS Digital offers scalable services and solutions to help keep your customers and employees safe and secure via social media and content moderation, channel and community management, user safety, fraud detection, KYC, ID verification and more. To learn more about TELUS Digital’s trust, safety and security solutions, visit: telusdigital.com/solutions/trust-safety-security
Survey Methodology: The Ryan Strategic Advisory 2025 CX Technology and Global Services Survey interviewed 819 enterprise executives, each of whom has strategic decision-making authority over contact centers in their respective organizations. Interviews were conducted over the telephone in Q1 2025 in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch or German (depending on the respondent’s country of residence). The revenue mix for respondents ranged from between $10 million to over $5 billion (USD).
