Digital Trust as a Strategic Enabler of Innovation in Emerging Technology Ecosystems

Digital trust has become increasingly important in emerging technology ecosystems, where rapid technological innovation depends on secure, transparent, and reliable digital interactions. Building digital trust can therefore facilitate innovation, collaboration, and sustainable technology adoption. This review examines digital trust as a strategic enabler of innovation in emerging technology ecosystems, with particular attention to governance, identity, security, data, and authenticity. The literature search period spanned 2021 to 2026, and the review was based on peer reviewed journal studies that helped clarify digital trust as a multidimensional condition rather than a vague expression of confidence. Across the literature, digital trust emerges as a practical foundation for adoption, collaboration, ecosystem coordination, and scalable innovation. It is shaped by transparency, explainability, privacy protection, accountability, interoperability, certification, a nd credible governance signals, alongside technical controls that reduce uncertainty and operational risk. The evidence shows that trust supports innovation by lowering perceived risk, strengthening user acceptance, and making digital systems more usable in real settings. In innovation ecosystems, trust improves collaboration among platform owners, developers, service providers, regulators, and end users, while also supporting retention, satisfaction, and performance. At the governance level, responsible artificial intelligence governance, privacy by design, and cross-border data flow governance appear to function as enabling conditions rather than barriers when they are clear, implementable, and aligned with system design. At the technical level, zero trust architecture, self-sovereign identity, privacy-enhancing technologies, cloud native security, and trustworthy data spaces create layered assurance that protects access, identity, workloads, and data throughout the digital lifecycle. The review also shows that trust is increasingly tied to authenticity, especially in environments shaped by generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, deepfakes, and provenance concerns. Sectoral evidence indicates that the trust requirements of healthcare, finance, public administration, smart cities, manufacturing, and digital trade differ in emphasis, but share the same underlying logic: Innovation scales more reliably when users and institutions can verify what is happening, who is involved, and whether the system is legitimate. Overall, digital trust should be understood as a structural condition for responsible innovation, not as a secondary feature. Future research should prioritize integrated measurement frameworks, broader inclusion, and more practical models for scaling trustworthy digital infrastructures across sectors and jurisdictions.