What remains valuable when AI makes software faster and cheaper to build? In this episode of the Australian Investors Podcast, Owen Rask argues that trust—not just a slick interface or a familiar logo—could become the advantage that businesses and investors need to understand. This is episode four of The Business Stack of the Future, brought to you by Stripe.
Owen starts with a question from the media world: when a respected person changes platforms, is the audience loyal to the institution, the individual, or the quality of the work? He carries that question into software. If competitors can reproduce a feature quickly, customers still need confidence that a provider can protect their information, explain mistakes and deliver reliably when the stakes are high.
The episode explores how organisations learn to use AI responsibly: testing tools against real tasks, reviewing failures and deciding where human oversight belongs. Owen also looks at the risk created when businesses connect suppliers, APIs and AI agents. Who has permission to access data or approve a payment—and how would you stop a bad instruction?
Stripe and Luxury Escapes offer practical examples of why operational history, fraud controls and customer experience matter alongside technology. For investors, Owen suggests looking beyond size or brand recognition to ask whether a company can earn more responsibility from customers, then serve them well without costs rising at the same pace. For business owners, the challenge is to build faster without treating dependability as an afterthought.
