Transcription:
About AI: Why FI’s are Using it Now More Than Ever

Bill Klaproth: When you've been searching for the right insight, advice, and information on the financial market, you know where to go. The Speakeasy, the exclusive source for financial marketing insights, with a shot of human.  Starring Kelly Hellickson and Hilary Reed from EmpowerFi. Strategy infused data-driven marketing solutions for financial institutions nationwide. I'm your host Bill Klaproth and on this episode, we talk with Riley Dickie, director of business development and sales operations for Faraday. And this kicks off a three-part series on artificial intelligence in the financial marketing landscape. And in this episode, we're going to talk about why FI's are using AI now more than ever. Riley, thank you so much for joining us and Kelly and Hillary, always fun and great to be with you. So Riley, start us off why are FI's using AI now more than ever?

Riley Dickie: Prevalent now more than ever in June of 2020, a few months into COVID. And I feel like EmpowerFi Faraday we've been on the forefront of these conversations over the past couple of years. And before I answer, why I think just quickly want to touch on, what is AI and AI is the best umbrella term for explaining advanced computer intelligence and the theory, the development of computer systems, basically were you able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, and if we can take out the biases and the time and money that it costs for humans do a lot of manual work and we can begin to automate these processes at cost savings in the millions and billions of dollars. Doing so without bias, without prejudice, and really just getting down to the personalized, the humanized level, that's where financial institutions have picked it up more and more so each year. And I think it's just going continue to skyrocket and, I know I don’t want to speak on behalf of Hillary and Kelly too much, but we're very excited to be a part of it.

Hilary Reed: Yeah, I think that's why we partnered. Right. That's why EmpowerFi partnered with Faraday was to bring all of what Riley just said, to the forefront for credit unions of all sizes. And I think that's really important to mention as well. You know, AI is important for financial institutions of all sizes, not just those big ones anymore and that's why we partnered. 

Riley: Correct. And, one of the things that, what was that once a, a player only for bigger institutions, you know, what those that had time, money, resources, artificial intelligence through companies like fair day EmpowerFi and the Intelifi offering. We're now able to bring this technology to institutions of all sizes, and I just mentioned cost savings. I remember seeing a stat a few weeks back talking to one of our existing clients and they said that, almost it's going to save you in an aggregated potential cost savings of about $500 billion just by 2023 and most institutions, I know financial brands come up with different studies, but we're looking at, you know, at savings, that's almost 25% of data science, marketing, operational budgets. If we can, you know, use theory, use data science, use these algorithms to, predict and personalize consumer behavior and, and you know what, get in front of humans in that one to one fashion that every institution out there is striving for.

Hilary: Yeah. When we met, we met Riley. Gosh, how long has it been? Like almost a year, year and a half. Gosh, it seems like not that long ago, but when we started talking about it, we were like, you know what, there's a lot of credit unions we work with who could really utilize AI for, you know, not only personalizing the experience for their member, but getting more from their members, in using more of a customized approach. And we thought it was a really innovative thing and it absolutely is, but at that time, it was really new to the credit union space. 

Kelly Hellickson: We were so passionate about meeting Riley and Faraday and teaming up because the big banks have been using artificial intelligence data platforms. Heck for three to five years at this point, and we saw a real opportunity for our credit union clients and this was the partnership and the tool that we could provide our clients with in order to help them grow.

Hilary: Yeah. And I think those credit unions who are not using AI yet are going to be the ones that are behind the time. So if we're talking, why AI, at this point, it's to keep up with the marketplace. 

Riley: Keep up and continue to, grow with it. It's going to be something that is not only going to be a luxury like it is today, but a necessity here moving forward. And regardless of some, people's maybe justification of why now it's a strong implementation into their existing tech stack or they're getting analysts, data scientists, they have it, or seen as an investment for the future. It's also providing, immediate results right now, which at the end of the day, it's, it's that ROI that's your C suite your board wants to see. And, most banks credit unions, financial institutions across the board, they're able to, attribute almost 20% of their companywide revenue growth to their AI initiatives. And that's the exciting part and, us three, out at that conference a year and a half ago, got so excited about is how can we give each of our small credit union clients medium-sized bit, credit union clients, these same results opportunities that the major players have been having here for years now. And it's a, it's a story credit union family that we love. And, it's now being able to bring this artificial intelligence technology to it. That is why they're doing it, but why we also are so excited and passionate about it. 

Host: Can anyone use this? I'm just thinking there might be a smaller credit union that says, Oh, that's for the big guys that's not for me. Is this technology applicable for anyone? 

Riley: It is, because at the end of the day, whether you're a credit union with $10 billion in assets or more, or you're A local credit union with a few million, you have your members, you have your constituents that you're trying to talk to in a personalized fashion. You've got your members that you're trying to offer the right products, the right services, and with technology nowadays, as long as we can plug into that member data, wherever it sits, whether it's not a big fancy data warehouse, a big fancy core, or simply see MCIs or spreadsheets. Now today's technology allows us to take advantage of it and then push, push results back into systems, whether it's just report driven, marketing campaign driven, building personas, which I know Kelly and Hillary loved talking about, and, you know, pushing personalized content and recommendations, to individuals or simply, you know, what, how do we give our call center tools to, have the best conversation possible now credit unions of all sizes can. And I think that's, what's been the most exciting transformation over this last a year and a half, with this partnership. 



Hilary: There's options out there for smaller credit unions, you know, like Intelifi, which is a service Bureau option, right? So you don't need to be the expert. The smaller credit unions, they don't need to be experts in artificial intelligence. They don't need to have a data scientist on staff. This allows for these smaller credit unions to seek out the experts in AI and the experts in strategizing. And so I think that's the best part about this is that we're bringing it to the small folks.

Riley: And Hillary that's such a good point is now what major players once had with full data science teams or market analysts on staff credit unions didn't necessarily always have that. And now this technology is available without the PhDs, without the data scientists, through automation, through artificial intelligence. And, and that is, what's so exciting about it across the lines. Yeah. 

Hilary: It makes Credit unions now, a player in the game 

Riley: A hundred percent. 

Kelly: I think it's why AI, why now it's more than ever important. And I think Riley touched on it. You know, we lean on, the financial brand, newsletter and website and all of the great futurists and topics that we take a look at and read and pull data from. And it's now more than ever a necessary tool because of the pandemic, because of the historical data that, you know, the smaller to mid-sized credit unions that can now afford this type of product, they now have the capability to use it. And those that, like Hillary said are going to jump on this and take advantage of it are going to be light years ahead of those, financial institutions that don't. 

Host: Absolutely. So if we can have you guys wrap this up for us again, just get across why is this so important for everyone to use? 

Riley: Yeah, I think the three answers that I always think of when talking in this space, the first one is cost savings. Artificial intelligence is replicating human intelligence, human behavior at a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost and without biases or prejudice, just using data and spitting out answers. It's spinning up predictions. It's spitting out understanding. And, I want to bring up the statistic I mentioned a little bit ago because it's mind-blowing when you read about it and think about it, but just in three years by 2023, there's a predicted aggregate, cost savings for financial institutions as a whole have about $450 billion. When you think of what it costs to have these full teams in house, if we can automate it, think of the cost savings and the other one is at the end of the day, getting results from it. Financial institutions, based off of, all different reports are contributing about 19 20% of their revenue growth directly to artificial intelligence initiatives, whether it's because of personalization, whether it's because of right product recommendation or because it's a, you know if they're able to better predict fraud detection, credit risk, those, those immediate results that are immediate re ROI is, Y enough. and that's, what's so exciting is both the short term and long term, positive, opportunities coming from this technology. 

Host: Yeah, I think that's great. Hilary and Kelly, any final wrap up from either of you.

Hilary: Yeah, what I get out of this is really the personalized, predictive approach and the experience that you can provide to your members, that would be a number one why for me, and then getting more from your current members or customers. this is so good for that, but I mean, not only that, but, but prospecting, new customers or members, but then finally, I think just keeping yourself as a player in the game. If you plan on being a financial institution who's around in the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Yeah. Then it's a place where you need to be, and it keeps you as a player in the game.

Kelly: I think my number one takeaway for why AI and why now is because of the member relationship build right. The deepening of the relationship, and becoming that your members, premier financial institution, their partner. And I think that the insights to your membership, that stem from artificial intelligence data platforms is what's going to keep you competitive, and it's going to give you that competitive edge, but also, it's going to build that relationship with the member that's invaluable.

Host: And I think that is the perfect way to wrap this up. Riley, thank you so much for your time. And this wraps up part one. Make sure you join us for part two and three, and to connect with Hilary or Kelly, please visit EmpoerFi.org and to learn more about artificial intelligence marketing please visit Empowerfi.org/services/data. This is the Speakeasy Financial Marketing podcast. Thanks for listening.