Trust me, I’m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins: Insights from the automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering sectors

Eleanor Smallwood; Catherine Naughtie; Ruth Gibson

Trust me, I’m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins: Insights from the automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering sectors

Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report

28 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Key Points

Positive attitudes towards digital twins: participants generally view digital twins positively and think that they could have a positive impact in the near-term.

High levels of trust: Participants reported high levels of trust in digital twins, even for applications that are not currently feasible. This suggests that there may be a tendency for over-trust that organisations should be aware of.

Beware of over-trust: organisations should be aware of potential over-trust in digital twins and ensure that users have realistic expectations of what a Digital Twin can and cannot do. Ways to do this include ‘grounding’ discussions of the Digital Twin in details about its capabilities and how it was developed and validated.

Original language	English
Place of Publication	Bath, UK
Publisher	Centre for People-Led Digitalisation
Number of pages	4
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2025

Funding

This work was supported by the Innovate UK led Made Smarter Innovation Programme: People-Led Digitalisation Engagement and Impact Acceleration [Grant Reference UKRI1436]

Keywords

Digital twin
Engineering
Trust
Automotive
Aerospace
Marine
Engineering Management
Technology Management

Access to Document

FINAL PLD DTs Insight DocFinal published version, 213 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@book{8cec54f1dacf42faaa3f5cac2ccbefbe,

title = "Trust me, I{\textquoteright}m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins: Insights from the automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering sectors",

abstract = "Key Points Positive attitudes towards digital twins: participants generally view digital twins positively and think that they could have a positive impact in the near-term. High levels of trust: Participants reported high levels of trust in digital twins, even for applications that are not currently feasible. This suggests that there may be a tendency for over-trust that organisations should be aware of. Beware of over-trust: organisations should be aware of potential over-trust in digital twins and ensure that users have realistic expectations of what a Digital Twin can and cannot do. Ways to do this include {\textquoteleft}grounding{\textquoteright} discussions of the Digital Twin in details about its capabilities and how it was developed and validated. ",

keywords = "Digital twin, Engineering, Trust, Automotive, Aerospace, Marine, Engineering Management, Technology Management",

author = "Eleanor Smallwood and Catherine Naughtie and Ruth Gibson",

year = "2025",

month = oct,

day = "1",

language = "English",

publisher = "Centre for People-Led Digitalisation",

address = "UK United Kingdom",

}

TY - BOOK

T1 - Trust me, I’m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins

T2 - Insights from the automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering sectors

AU - Smallwood, Eleanor

AU - Naughtie, Catherine

AU - Gibson, Ruth

PY - 2025/10/1

Y1 - 2025/10/1

N2 - Key Points Positive attitudes towards digital twins: participants generally view digital twins positively and think that they could have a positive impact in the near-term. High levels of trust: Participants reported high levels of trust in digital twins, even for applications that are not currently feasible. This suggests that there may be a tendency for over-trust that organisations should be aware of. Beware of over-trust: organisations should be aware of potential over-trust in digital twins and ensure that users have realistic expectations of what a Digital Twin can and cannot do. Ways to do this include ‘grounding’ discussions of the Digital Twin in details about its capabilities and how it was developed and validated.

AB - Key Points Positive attitudes towards digital twins: participants generally view digital twins positively and think that they could have a positive impact in the near-term. High levels of trust: Participants reported high levels of trust in digital twins, even for applications that are not currently feasible. This suggests that there may be a tendency for over-trust that organisations should be aware of. Beware of over-trust: organisations should be aware of potential over-trust in digital twins and ensure that users have realistic expectations of what a Digital Twin can and cannot do. Ways to do this include ‘grounding’ discussions of the Digital Twin in details about its capabilities and how it was developed and validated.

KW - Digital twin

KW - Engineering

KW - Trust

KW - Automotive

KW - Aerospace

KW - Marine

KW - Engineering Management

KW - Technology Management

M3 - Commissioned report

BT - Trust me, I’m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins

PB - Centre for People-Led Digitalisation

CY - Bath, UK

ER -

Trust me, I’m a twin? The importance of balancing positivity and realism for the safe and effective adoption of Digital Twins: Insights from the automotive, aerospace, and marine engineering sectors

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this