Why the 2nd Biggest Credit Union Is Conservative on AI

Ankur Patel interviews Phil Caputo, Executive Vice President &amp; Director of the Enterprise Project Management Office at State Employees' 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 />Phil runs the EPMO at SECU — the second-largest credit union in the US, nearly 3 million members, $60 billion in assets, on a core system older than many of its members. He makes the operator's case for being deliberately conservative on AI: why a late mover with a loyal, member-service-first base can afford to learn from others' pitfalls, how he separates real strategy from a wall of projects, and where AI does and doesn't earn a seat — governance and member service in, autonomous decisions out.<br /><br />Guest: Phil Caputo, Director of the Enterprise Project Management Office, State Employees' Credit Union<br />Host: Ankur Patel, CEO &amp; Founder, Multimodal<br /><br />0:00 Introduction: Meet Phil<br />0:43 What Phil walked into: a $60B credit union with no project governance<br />2:12 Building structure and who pushes back hardest<br />3:28 The missing middle: strategy between goals and projects<br />5:31 Going from big idea to real outcome: the digital overhaul<br />8:00 How governance and execution actually work at SECU<br />9:00 Post-implementation reviews and the rewards-card example<br />10:03 KPIs that measure outcomes, not activity<br />11:51 Buy versus build<br />15:02 AI as the next level of integration<br />15:59 When is a conservative AI policy grounded versus behind<br />18:34 Lessons from being conservative on prior technologies<br />23:58 What actually motivates SECU to move<br />25:13 Discovery: member requests, advisory boards, and tech debt<br />27:00 Recurring themes for improving member satisfaction<br />28:47 Which parts of the digital experience needed the most work<br />31:06 Unifying channels into one member experience<br />32:35 The members SECU has been missing<br />33:19 Where AI could materially improve member experience in three years<br />35:09 Closing