Why Trust Retreats Into Our Own Circles: Optimism, Transformation and the Empathy AI Is Missing - Nils Giese, Edelman Germany (EP 47)

🎙️Nils Giese, CEO, Edelman Germany
Only 8% of people in Germany believe the next generation will be better off, and Nils Giese, CEO of Edelman Germany, calls it the most shocking number in his firm’s Trust Barometer. Behind it he sees trust retreating onto “social islands”: small circles of people like us, now with high walls around them. That leaves leaders with a hard job (bringing people across those walls while asking them to change, AI included), and Nils is open that he isn’t very optimistic about the months ahead.
🎧 Episode overview
Edelman’s research breaks trust into five parts (ability, dependability, integrity, purpose and personal relevance), and Nils argues the human ones weigh more than competence, even in a country that likes to trust its engineering; for him personally, dependability and integrity come first when times are uncertain. The 8% tells him the contract between generations is “just collapsing”, and when Eva brings in KfW’s finding that a third of German Mittelstand firms postponed or scaled back their 2026 investments, he reads it the same way: not a lack of money or ideas, but how hard it has become to imagine the future. His answer is the employer as bridge builder, the most trusted institution in Germany because of the little word “my”. Eva pushes on how leaders can do that when everyone, Gen Z first, feels overwhelmed, and Nils points to what transformation stories leave out: empathy, and the rule that what the recipient hears matters more than what the sender says. On AI, he describes the fear in large companies as diffuse rather than experienced, sees trust rise after one good experience, and says AI “had the worst PR agency in the world”.
💡 Key themes
What trust is made of, and why honesty can outweigh competence
How companies invest in a future only 8% expect to be better
Whether employers can bridge the social islands people retreat to
What AI transformation loses when it speaks only to the rational case
Where trust can grow again: small steps, close to home
👤 About the guest
Nils Giese is CEO of Edelman Germany and leads Edelman’s healthcare marketing across EMEA; he joined the firm in 2021 to run its German healthcare business, after years in strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. His firm has measured trust for 26 years through the Edelman Trust Barometer, and Nils reads those numbers as someone who has to move people through change himself: when he joined, he described his work as trusted, active and creative dialogue, long before the AI debate.
⏱ Chapters
00:00 What trust is made of
06:34 Only 8% expect a better future
11:55 Social islands with high walls
16:40 Overwhelmed, and the missing empathy
22:46 AI as a diffuse fear
27:14 Not optimistic yet: start small, start local
🔗 Links
Nils Giese on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nils-giese-898058151/
Edelman Germany - ⁠https://www.edelman.com/de/de⁠
Eva Simone Lihotzky on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evalihotzky/
raidiant, Eva’s responsible AI advisory - https://www.raidiant.eu/
Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, Germany - https://www.edelman.com/de/de/trust/2026/trust-barometer
Edelman Trust at Work 2026 - https://www.edelman.com/newsroom/richard-edelmans-6am-blog/trust-at-work-2026
Edelman Flash Poll: Trust and Artificial Intelligence at a Crossroads - https://www.edelman.com/insights/familiarity-breeds-trust-in-ai
KfW-Mittelstandspanel 2026 - https://www.kfw.de/Über-die-KfW/Newsroom/Aktuelles/Pressemitteilungen-Details_910272.html
Related episode - Two Fears Behind Every AI Transformation - Dr. Charlotte Blum (EP 31) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5A0aUErqMyqTKjBQqOuGaD?si=HWFJpD3VRhqquH1hpQ0WXQ