Adopting AI without losing the human connection

Ankur Patel interviews LeAnn Case, Chief Strategy Officer at St. Cloud Financial Credit Union.<br /><br />📩 Subscribe to the Main Street AI Newsletter: https://multimodal.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&amp;utm_medium=description&amp;utm_campaign=podcast<br /><br />St. Cloud Financial is a $450M central-Minnesota credit union doing things most institutions its size won't touch — cannabis banking, digital asset custody, and a nationwide foundation. LeAnn's argument: adopt AI to strip out the friction (a cannabis business review takes 15 hours to file) and buy back time for members, without sacrificing the human connection that's the whole point of the place.<br /><br />Guest: LeAnn Case, Chief Strategy Officer, St. Cloud Financial Credit Union<br />Host: Ankur Patel, CEO &amp; Founder, Multimodal<br /><br />0:00 Introduction: Meet LeAnn<br />1:10 From marketing to strategy<br />6:36 What is St. Cloud Financial<br />7:24 A vision built on human connection<br />8:33 The convenience-vs-connection tension<br />11:08 Prioritizing AI use cases<br />13:00 34 fintech pitches, one budget<br />15:24 Member engagement and support<br />19:09 The iPhone pace expectation<br />20:42 Vendors who become partners<br />23:00 AI is not plug-and-play<br />25:09 Staff expectations and guardrails<br />28:01 Leading versus following<br />30:56 Evidence-backed AI and audit trails<br />33:00 Competing with the fintechs<br />37:54 Change management: start with the why<br />42:26 Signals and risks ahead<br />44:15 Closing