Main Street AI

Ankur Patel interviews Phillip Autrey, COO at CUltivate. 📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=podcast CUltivate is a CUSO and AI platform built for credit unions by credit union insiders. Phillip makes the case that big-tech AI hasn't earned the trust credit unions need to deploy it, t...

Ankur Patel interviews Phil Caputo, Executive Vice President & Director of the Enterprise Project Management Office at State Employees' Credit Union. 📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=podcast Phil runs the EPMO at SECU — the second-largest credit union in the US, nearly 3 millio...

Ankur Patel interviews Randy Salser, President & CEO of NACUSO. 📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=podcast Randy explains how the CUSO model empowers credit unions to compete on AI and stablecoin — how shared service organizations give a $500M institution a seat at the table next...

Ankur Patel interviews Michael Heller, Associate Attorney at Messick Lauer & Smith. 📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=podcast Michael Heller is an Associate Attorney at Messick Lauer & Smith, where he focuses on vendor management, technology contracts, due diligence, and fintech partnership...

Ankur Patel interviews Courtney Rowan, SVP and Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at Citadel Credit Union. Courtney has spent 27 years watching digital go from a side project to the only front door, and she brings the rare full-arc operator perspective on what it takes to make that shift work. She breaks down the non-documentary onboarding rebuild that lifted funnel conversion 212%, the CDP/...

Ankur Patel interviews Chris Ortega, who leads technology transformation at Lake Michigan Credit Union, a $17B asset institution and the 13th largest credit union in the US. What's distinct about Chris's approach is that he restructures how the organization operates before deploying the tools — agile teams, a Center of Excellence, and a single Emerging Technology Governance Board that owns AI, RPA...

Ankur Patel interviews Lisa Highley, Chief Lending Officer at University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union (UKFCU). They chat about the credit union's new mortgage department, a rebuilt commercial lending operation, Zest AI live in consumer lending, GLIA live in the call center, and the institution's first merger. 📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscri...

Ankur talks with Steve Zich, Chief Marketing Officer at Capital Credit Union in Green Bay, Wisconsin, about an operator's playbook on deploying AI in the marketing department. The conversation goes deep on personalization done right (vs. creepy), competing with big banks and fintechs on community rather than spend, and the team-level mindset shift that makes AI adoption stick. 📩 Subscribe to the...

Ankur Patel interviews Hashim Forrester, SVP of Remote Service Delivery at Wescom Financial — one of the largest credit unions in Southern California. Hashim brings three decades of operations and service delivery experience, and his team has become the trailblazers for AI adoption at Wescom — running Copilot in production, deploying intelligent virtual assistants on the phone system, and building...

Ankur Patel interviews Jeffrey Staw, Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Firefighters First Credit Union. Firefighters First has one of the most unique membership models in the industry, serving career firefighters and their families exclusively. Jeffrey brings a rare dual perspective, having previously led one of the most influential CUSOs in the country doing large-scale technology work...

At Multimodal, agentic AI is reshaping how the team ships product, hires, and thinks about work itself. In this episode of Main Street AI, Ankur Patel sits down with Ishita Jaiswal, Head of Growth at Multimodal, for an internal look at how a 3-year-old agentic AI startup is operating in a market where the last three months brought more change than all of 2025. What makes this conversation differen...

Ankur Patel interviews Jed Meyer, CEO of St. Cloud Financial Credit Union — a 5-branch, $425M institution serving 28,000 members in central Minnesota. Jed has driven 400% organic growth in nearly 12 years at the helm, with 2025 marking the best year in the credit union's 96-year history. Jed is focused on using technology to create more human connection, not less. From launching the first-ever CU...

While many financial institutions are still figuring out their digital strategy, Meghan Gound is running digital at a scale most will never see. In this episode of Main Street AI, Ankur Patel chats with Meghan Gound, SVP of Digital at Navy Federal — the world's largest credit union with over 15 million members across the military community, veterans, and families. Meghan owns digital strategy acro...

While many are still theorizing about AI in financial services, Amy Stevens is running it in production. In this episode of Main Street AI, Ankur Patel sits down with Amy Stevens, SVP of Member Experience at GreenState Credit Union — Iowa's largest credit union with $11B in assets, 450,000 members, and a fast-growing footprint across Illinois and Nebraska. Amy owns the contact center, the NPS prog...

Read the blog post: http://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/how-mid-market-banks-can-leverage-ai-for-growth Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers Why do so many financial institutions struggle to scale AI beyond pilots? Amman, Chief Strategy Officer at Tribeca Softech, joins Ankur on Pioneers to unpack the realities of AI adoption in financial services. Despite...

Read the blog post: www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/igniting-change-in-credit-unions Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers How is AI bridging the gap between credit unions and FinTechs? Julie Esser, founder of IgniteFI, joins Pioneers to discuss the rapid advancements in AI and its critical role in transforming credit unions. Julie explains how aligning values...

Read the blog post: www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/where-ai-fits-and-where-it-should-not-in-insurance Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers How can AI modernize insurance without losing the human element Justin Hinson, Product Leader at CompSource Mutual, joins Pioneers to explore where AI truly fits, and where it doesn’t, in workers’ compensation insurance....

Read the blog post: www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/mortgage-ai-from-an-operators-perspective Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers How is AI reshaping one of the most regulated industries in finance? Jason Harris, Strategic Initiatives Manager at American Portfolio Mortgage, joins Pioneers to unpack how AI is transforming mortgage lending from the inside out....

Read the blog post: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/how-to-make-enterprise-ai-work-ft-tim-piemonte Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers How do enterprises move from AI experimentation to real, scalable impact? Tim Piemonte, President and Co-Founder at Tribeca Softech, joins Ankur Patel to break down what it actually takes to implement AI successfully...

Read the blog post: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers-content/how-valley-bank-uses-ai-to-drive-banking-innovation Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.multimodal.dev/pioneers How are traditional banks reinventing themselves for the fintech and AI era? Izge Cengiz Ercan, Director of Strategic Innovation at Valley Bank, joins Ankur Patel to share how she’s bridging legacy banking with e...

Can AI make brokers superhuman instead of obsolete? Cheynna Massie, Managing Partner & CFO at Massie Risk and Founder of Agent 3, joins Ankur Patel to discuss how generative AI is reshaping commercial insurance, from automating back-office tasks to scaling broker intelligence. She breaks down why the real profit bottleneck isn’t technology, but human bandwidth, and how Decision AI can change t...

Can AI finally fix the broken economics of fleet insurance? Felix Kuhlmann, co-founder of Drive-In and Insurance Executive in Residence at Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab, unpack why commercial fleet insurance has been unprofitable for decades and how agentic AI, telematics, and better data pipelines could change that. From underwriting to risk sharing, Felix explains where AI can truly deliver...

Why is AI adoption in financial services so slow? According to NayaOne’s Managing Director, Scott Sambucci, it’s the bureaucracy, not technology gaps. In this episode, he joins Ankur Patel to unpack what’s really stopping organizations from adopting AI, like endless committees, and share frameworks for testing AI responsibly, yet quickly. Tune in to learn why you should run structured validations...

Why is AI adoption in financial services so slow? According to NayaOne’s Managing Director, Scott Sambucci, it’s the bureaucracy, not technology gaps. In this episode, he joins Ankur Patel to unpack what’s really stopping organizations from adopting AI, like endless committees, and share frameworks for testing AI responsibly, yet quickly. Tune in to learn why you should run structured validations...

How do you make insurance work for small businesses? Henry Tam, Head of Business Development at Next Insurance, joins Ankur Patel to share how AI and automation are transforming underwriting, claims, and customer experience. From instant decisions to dynamic coverage, Henry explains how Next is reimagining insurance for Main Street America, while keeping customer simplicity at the core