An AI-First Platform Built on Trust - Philipp Witzmann, nebenan.de (EP 37)
episodePreviously titled “An AI-First Platform Built on Trust - Philipp Witzmann” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 3, 2026
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Why does Nebenan require real‑name and address sign‑ups and how does that build digital trust?
My guest today is Philip Witzmann. Philip is the CEO of Nebenandee, the German neighborhood platform that is really fifteen thousand small networks across the country, and where you only get in if you sign up with your real name and your real address. With him, I talk about what happens when a company treats trust as the product, how he's rebuilding his whole company around AI. While refusing to cut a single job, what his and his leadership's team's role is in that exact process, and why living between uncomfortable and difficult leads to experiencing success but also learning how to fail. Philip, welcome to the In Between Tech and Trust Podcast.
Hi, thank you for the invitation.
You lead one of the largest neighborhood platforms in Germany, and it's a business that is existing because people decide to trust each other. So when you look into today's tech landscape and in particular also informing connections, what comes to your mind when you first think about technology and trust?
For most of the internet's history, trust was treated as a cost, something to engineer away with frictionless signups and reach our relationship. What comes to mind is like that we are now somehow paying the bill for that, right? Like earning money with like attention. The more attention you get, the more money you earn somehow led to a world in that we're living in that basically people stopped trusting what they see. They still consume a lot, but the trust itself went away. It's like what you see in social media, like I think Meta claimed that they are not a social media platform anymore. They are a platform for media. And the media that is basically distributed over their platform is not controlled, moderated, or anything anymore.
So basically you are in a world of like unruled, unguarded content that is basically suited to your attention, no matter what it is. And that's something that I think where we pay the bill for. Opening up an internet with no limitations, which is something I really vouch for, but seeing what it does to our society, what it does to our children, what it does to our own awareness and focus is something that I see very critical.
And now you mentioned that you recently also the platform and how you built it up and the registration on Ne are increasing significantly. Would you attribute it that people are just tired and that they also do not appreciate the anonymity of social media platforms or that they pay with their attention on those exact platforms to the increase of registration? Or would you also say that it's due to the age AI-driven interactions that now also come on top when people enter the digital sphere.
Yeah, it's uh I would say it's like a still early indication, but like since around six months, so really since the real flood to have uh AI accessible, having like video creates by anyone. Uh I I think I I I personally see this like very well. I have a very large like personal private network. When I look at the stories that people post with videos of themselves on AI on in their WhatsApp status, it really feels like uh the creation of videos has reached anyone by now. Um and what we see with the users when we ask them when they sign up, we see an increasing number of users chairs around like thirty five, thirty six percent of users that basically say we are not like active on any other platform anymore.
And it was like twenty three, twenty four percent like uh one or two years ago. So what what I would what what we also see when we talk to customers is they they call it like kind of AI fatigue um or social media fatigue that has Like been accelerated significantly through uh the AI world because you have been targeted in the beginning with like real content and then uh the fake content started. Fake content became like a commodity when it comes to created some and and and became very easy to uh create create like videos for anyone with any message and any intention. Um people feel that they are flooded, right? And what we see is like the the wish for trust, like what can we trust?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why does Nebenan require real‑name and address sign‑ups and how does that build digital trust?
0:06–6:41
2
How does re‑introducing friction improve user behavior compared to the friction‑less internet model?
6:41–14:00
3
What impact does AI‑generated content have on user fatigue and the need for verifiable human interaction?
14:00–21:54
4
Why does Philipp believe a “real, verifiable human” is becoming more valuable as fake content becomes cheaper?
21:54–29:15
5
How does Nebenan measure success – time spent versus meaningful offline interactions?
29:15–31:50
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The In-Between Tech and Trust Podcast
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