The FAQ Bot That Ate a Credit Union's Entire AI Budget

<p>Ankur Patel interviews Zach Cox, Director of Business Innovation, and Aaron Cain, Director of Digital Innovation at Credit Union 1.</p><p>📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&amp;utm_medium=description&amp;utm_campaign=podcast</p><p>Credit Union 1 deployed AI use cases before it built the governance around them, and paid for the lesson when a narrow FAQ bot burned through the credit union&#39;s initial AI spend commitment without moving a single business outcome. Zach and Cain break down the vendor terms that made that happen, Cain&#39;s Aviary AI outbound calling program that reached 7,000 members ahead of a merger, and why CU1 now maintains a human version and an AI version of the same knowledge.</p><p>Guest: Zach Cox, Director of Business Innovation, Credit Union 1</p><p>Guest: Cain, Director of Digital Innovation, Credit Union 1</p><p>Host: Ankur Patel, CEO &amp; Founder, Multimodal</p><p>0:00 Introduction: Meet Zach and Cain</p><p>1:13 What Zach and Cain each own at CU1</p><p>5:01 Fix the process before adding AI</p><p>8:13 Deploy and learn vs infrastructure first</p><p>9:57 The FAQ bot that ate the commit</p><p>14:14 Don&#39;t let the vendor wag the dog</p><p>20:12 Buying for value, not volume</p><p>22:35 Trust and never blocking the human</p><p>24:17 When AI feels more human</p><p>28:14 Aviary AI outbound calling for mergers</p><p>32:44 The make-a-payment bot</p><p>35:46 Frontline feedback workshops</p><p>40:50 Replacement through attrition</p><p>43:15 What data readiness really means</p><p>44:09 The chatbot that quoted a disclosure as fact</p><p>48:34 What success looks like in 2027</p><p>50:30 Closing</p>