The Role of AI in Credit Unions: From the Lens of a Former President/CEO
In March, I was blessed to rejoin the Vizo Financial team after a five-year stint as president & CEO of a credit union. It was tough to say goodbye to that family, but the opportunity to have a front row seat as your corporate invests in its membership by bringing forward new technologies to streamline credit union operations was just too appealing. The tech we see creeping over the horizon, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), could be game-changing when it comes to the greatest challenge I faced as a CEO – finding time. Specifically, time for management to develop and execute credit union growth strategies.
Vizo Financial members understand this struggle. Day-to-day operations more than fill the workday, and most credit union balance sheets simply can’t support hiring the many hands needed to make the work light. Just keeping up with the “must do” tasks often threatens work-life balance, if not placing it altogether out of reach. It’s easy to see how the energy required to pursue what the credit union “could do” is hard to summon at times, and as a result, we may just keep doing what we’ve always done.
But there’s renewed hope for the future. With the emergence of AI integrations that are poised to change the equation, credit unions are uniquely positioned to benefit.
A Solution That Supports the CU Mission…
Consider this…in the financial services space, does anyone do more for consumers with less resources than credit unions? Doing more with less is difficult, but there are advantages. Without question, credit union professionals have broader expertise across functional areas of the organization than their counterparts at banks. To be honest, the comparison isn’t even close. And when it comes to agility in the pursuit of efficiency, credit union leaders are exceptional. You’ve had to be. These characteristics make credit union leaders uniquely adept when it comes to the implementation of new tech, and that will serve our movement well in the era of AI.
Speaking of the movement, collaboration is our superpower. When I find myself across the table from one of our banking brethren, my favorite topic to discuss is how credit unions work together to make each other more successful. It often results in a “deer in the headlights” expression that, I must admit, I find entertaining. As credit unions, there is no reason for us to tackle anything alone, and the infusion of AI into our operations is no exception. We’ll develop solutions faster because we communicate better. And just imagine the implications that cooperation will have when it comes to data analytics. We won’t be locked into looking exclusively inward – we’ll develop opportunities to share information and grow together.
…And Solves Problems
If you agree that finding time in your operations is a critical need, and that as credit unions we’re uniquely positioned to solve that problem with AI, the question you may be asking is, “Okay, what next?”
For most of us, the answer is to learn. If, like me, you favored recess over math, the topic of AI can seem a little intimidating. For this reason, Vizo Financial has already begun providing our members with opportunities to grow their knowledge by learning from the experts in a variety of conference and workshop settings. On one such occasion, I had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Anthony Volpe, chief analytics officer with Vertice AI.
Dr. Volpe suggested the entry point for pursuing AI integration is understanding that, “AI is not an end unto itself. It is a means of doing the many things your members need you to do, but faster, more efficiently and still at the personalized level expected of credit unions.” He went on to explain that a basic tenet of assessing AI opportunities is to understand what constitutes AI. He offered the following test questions as a framework:
- Does the solution incorporate significant data?
- Does the solution utilize purpose-trained models/algorithms?
- Does the solution mimic human cognition for the performance of a task?
- Does the solution learn/evolve?
- Does the solution act autonomously?
Undoubtedly, AI checks all these boxes.
Dr. Volpe went on to cite FICO scoring, which lenders have utilized for decades, as analogous to the efficiencies AI may bring to credit unions. Credit analysis dates to the late 1800s, but it wasn’t efficient until the Fair Isaacs model was founded in 1956. Imagine how laborious and time-consuming credit risk assessments would be without access to credit reporting. Credit scoring agencies, the “autonomous” resource in the analogy, serve as the means to an important end for credit unions, which is an efficient underwriting process. AI promises similar large-scale efficiencies in other areas of credit union operations, and it is happening rapidly.
Being able to distinguish between real AI solutions and legacy platforms that have been rebranded as AI is a good place to start. Credit union leaders also need to be working on their wish list. You should already be identifying the under-resourced areas of your credit union operations and beginning to evaluate whether AI solutions to enhance those resources might already be in the market. Doing so enables strategic planning around the opportunities AI will bring for your back-office and leads you to prepare your board of directors and staff to embrace AI as part of the credit union’s digital road map.
Your AI Journey Begins
At Vizo Financial, we’re working to be your companion on the AI journey. We’ve started with the introduction of Vertice AI, an analytics and AI-enabled platform that provides your credit union with a consolidated view of member relationships, allowing you to clearly assess member engagement and quickly identify opportunities to grow participation through relevant, targeted marketing efforts. I mentioned earlier that finding time for strategic development was a big challenge. So was confidently, and efficiently, learning from our own credit union data. Vertice AI solves both. Imagine being at your next strategic meeting and having a skilled data scientist at the table, able to instantly slice and segment your member information, aggregating it from the platforms where it may be held. What could you do with that power? How much more meaningful could the results of those rarely available strategic moments become?
Vertice AI is the first AI-driven platform Vizo Financial will bring to the credit union marketplace…but it’s only the beginning. Our focus is on helping credit unions gain efficiency and growth opportunities by unlocking the power within their own data stream.
Regardless of where your credit union is on the AI journey, don’t forget the basics. If you haven’t already, your leadership should be putting AI policies in place and offering guidance on platforms already acceptable for employee use. For example, many credit unions are already utilizing ChatGPT, and if you’re a Microsoft shop, I’m not sure how you could avoid Co-Pilot even if you wanted to. AI solutions will present themselves, so it’s important to make sure your staff knows what is expected of them when they do. They will be excited by the opportunity to gain efficiency – who wouldn’t be? But it’s incumbent on leadership to provide a framework for determining if those efficiencies are worth the risk, if any, to the credit union through the implementation of the solution.
AI is going to change the world, and we’re happy to have a role in harnessing its potential for the benefit of our member credit unions.
Jeremy Jenkins is the VP of data analytics for Vizo Financial Corporate Credit Union. In this role, he consults with credit unions to help them leverage AI-driven technology solutions brought forward by the Corporate and its technology partners. In 2025, he returned to the Vizo Financial after serving as the president/CEO of Lanco Federal Credit Union in Lancaster, Pa., since 2020. Prior to his time with Lanco FCU, he held various roles at the Corporate, including corporate account manager and member relations director.