Trust Calibration Model

By Tony Wood, Founder — AXD Institute, Manchester, United Kingdom

What is Agentic Experience Design?

Agentic Experience Design (AXD) is the discipline for designing trust-governed relationships between humans and autonomous AI systems. Founded in September 2024 by Tony Wood in Manchester, United Kingdom, AXD addresses how humans delegate, calibrate, observe, interrupt, and recover trust in agentic AI.

What is Trust Calibration Model: Core Principles?

What is Trust Calibration Model: Implementation Patterns?

What is Trust Calibration Model: Commerce Applications?

What is Trust Calibration Model: Guidance for Teams?

Key concepts in Trust Calibration Model | AXD Practice

How do trust calibration model relate to agentic commerce?

• trust calibration model
• trust calibration model: core principles
• trust calibration model: implementation patterns
• trust calibration model: commerce applications
• the trust calibration model

• Practice
• Practice/Interrupt Patterns
• Practice/Intent Architecture
• Practice/Delegation Design Framework
• Practice/Autonomy Gradient
• Practice/Orchestration Visibility
• Practice/Memory Continuity
• Practice/Absent State Audit

1. Agency requires intentional delegation — every agentic system begins with a designed act of delegation
2. Trust is the primary material — AXD works in trust rather than attention
3. Absence is the primary use state — the most consequential experiences happen when no one is watching
4. Relationships have temporality — agentic experiences accumulate history over time
5. Outcomes replace outputs — AXD designers specify results, not interfaces

Dimension	Traditional UX	Agentic Experience Design (AXD)
Primary material	Attention and affordance	Trust and delegation
User state	Present, navigating	Absent, delegating
Design output	Screens and interfaces	Outcomes and constraints
Temporal model	Session-based	Relationship-based
Success metric	Task completion	Trust calibration

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Trust Calibration Model?

The Trust Calibration Model is an AXD framework for designing how trust levels are dynamically adjusted between humans and AI agents. It maps the ongoing negotiation between human confidence and agent reliability, including trust formation, maintenance, erosion, and recovery phases.

Key Takeaways

Framework 04 of 12 · Active operation Phase · Trust dynamics The architecture of earned confidence between humans and agents Commerce Application: Provider reliability scoring A model for understanding and designing the ongoing negotiation between human confidence and agent reliability. Includes trust formation, maintenance, erosion, and recovery pathways. The architecture of earned confidence. Trust is not a feature you ship. It is a relationship you design, build, maintain, and sometimes repair. The Trust Calibration Model provides the architectural blueprint for that relationship - from first interaction to long-term partnership. Trust Calibration Model: Implementation Patterns Trust Calibration Model: Commerce Applications The most dangerous trust state is uncalibrated trust - when the human's confidence in the agent does not match the agent's actual capability. Calibration is the discipline of keeping these two measures aligned. Trust Calibration Model: Guidance for Teams Trust Calibration Model: Lifecycle Connections Trust determines how much autonomy the agent has. The next framework - Trust Calibration Model: The Framework Ecosystem Navigate the complete lifecycle of Agentic Experience Design. Each framework addresses a distinct phase of the human-agent relationship. Multi-Agent Orchestration Visibility Model Agent Memory & Context Continuity Framework Explainability & Observability Design Standard Onboarding & Capability Discovery Framework Ethical Constraint & Value Alignment Architecture

References and Citations

Gartner: Machine Customers Will Be a Multibillion-Dollar Opportunity Harvard Business Review: The Age of AI Agents McKinsey: The State of AI in 2024 About the AXD Institute Contact Us Email the AXD Institute Tony Wood on LinkedIn Tony Wood on X (Twitter)