“I don’t think AI is going anywhere. It’s not a fad. It’s really going to become an infrastructural shift,”
declares Emily Osburn, a consultant at Cornerstone Advisors. This powerful statement cuts through the noise surrounding artificial intelligence, reframing it not as a passing trend, but as a foundational change for businesses, particularly within the credit union community. The question is no longer if AI will impact your organization, but how you will harness its potential. The human side of AI is equally important as the technology.
This insightful discussion, featuring Sarah Snell Cooke, host of The Credit Union Connection, alongside Emily, Dustin Montoya (CTO at Elevations Credit Union), and Maura Horn (VP of Learning and Development at Elevations Credit Union), delves into the practicalities and philosophies behind AI adoption in financial services. They explore how credit unions are moving beyond theoretical exploration to tangible deployment with credit unions’ human employees, driven by a desire for increased efficiency, enhanced member experience and robust fraud prevention. The conversation quickly reveals that the most successful implementations are those that emphasize the human side of AI as much as technology.
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One of the most compelling aspects of the discussion is the shared belief that AI isn’t about replacing jobs, but about empowering employees. Dustin highlights how Elevations Credit Union successfully “repurposed” an employee from tedious, repetitive tasks to more value-add work. This real-world example beautifully illustrates the potential for AI to free up human capital, allowing teams to focus on critical thinking and complex problem-solving. Maura further elaborates on the importance of training and continuous reinforcement, emphasizing the need to balance security protocols with encouraging AI use, making employees confident and comfortable with these new tools.
The candid insights from Elevations Credit Union offer a roadmap for other institutions navigating their own AI journeys. Dustin’s emphasis on an “offensive” and “defensive” AI strategy, focusing on both productivity and protection, provides a holistic framework. Meanwhile, Maura’s discussion of internal AI knowledge assistants and prompt engineering classes underscores the critical role of learning and development in successful adoption. The panelists collectively paint a picture of an AI-driven future that is not just efficient, but also deeply human-centered.
Disclosure: Transcript below is automatically generated
Sarah Cooke
My name is Sarah Snell Cooke. I am your host here at The Credit Union Connection, as you know, and I am surrounded today by a bunch of credit union and financial services experts we have below me looks like is Emily Osburn, Cornerstone Advisors. Consultant.
Emily Osburn
Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, absolutely
Sarah Cooke
excited to hear, hear what you have to say. Maura Horn, who’s the VP of Learning and Development
Maura Horn
right next to meet you. Thank you. You as well. Yeah.
Sarah Cooke
And last, but not least, we have Dustin Montoya, who’s the CTO at Elevations Credit Union. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. Maura is also Elevations Credit Union, but Dustin, why don’t you take it away? Give us a little more background on yourself and Elevations.
Dustin Montoya
Yeah, thank you for having us. Sarah. It’s great to be here. As you said, I’m Dustin Montoya, Chief Technology Officer of Elevations Credit Union, and I think I’m here because I’m the executive sponsor of our AI and automation initiative.
Sarah Cooke
Fun stuff, definitely fun stuff. And finally, credit unions are, you know, I feel like the last year and a half was kind of learning, and now it’s doing where you’re going to get some traction and Elevations, of course, always one of the more, one of the ones toward the forefront there, Maura, you go ahead and introduce yourself further.
Maura Horn
Yeah, as you said, I oversee learning and development, which also includes knowledge management. Recently we just added internal communications, among other things, and I am working alongside of Dustin to really get AI and automation adoption happening inside of Elevations.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because it’s definitely not just a tech thing. It’s people thing,
Maura Horn
it’s adoption. Yes.
Sarah Cooke
And Emily,
Emily Osburn
Yeah, I’m with Cornerstone advisors. I’m a consultant here. I’m on our strategy and execution team. So really, you know, driving research around AI, kind of getting insights into what you know, institutions, like Elevations, like other institutions are doing around AI. Mm, hmm, cool.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah. So, now that we know who’s who, I’m going to go ahead and throw it to Emily or back to you what. What is the state of AI in credit unions? Yeah,
Emily Osburn
Yeah, for sure. So, AI adoption in credit unions has really shifted towards kind of, you know, from that experimental phase to really more tangible deployment. I think around 2021 about 18% of community FIS had chat bots and generative AI wasn’t really even on the radar. But you know, by 2025 we’re at 1/3 have deployed chat bots and about a quarter even using generative AI tools. So that being said, I think the scope is still pretty narrow for the most part. Deployment is is on that frontline productivity and customer service aspect, and not really deeply embedded into other other business functions. But you know, this is really changing as institutions really recognize potential and operational efficiency. You know, opportunities in other areas,
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, definitely an area of interest for many of the credit union executives I talk with is the efficiency that AI can bring in automation. So Dustin, why did you begin implementing AI, and what are your objectives?
Dustin Montoya
Wow, why did we begin implementing AI. Let’s say we’ve been using AI for some years. It’s kind of embedded in some of the platforms that we have, but there was really a catalyst in November of 2022 called Chat GPT open to the public, and I think that accelerated a lot of people’s adoption of AI. It certainly did for us. So we already had a an automation initiative going on at the time, we just added AI as another tool set, because it was becoming more available, it was more advanced, and it’s getting better all the time. So that’s kind of why we adopted it, and wasn’t more so much about adopting it was accelerating the adoption, and then the objectives that we had sought. We early on, we introduced a an AI strategy. It was really on the offensive side and the defensive side. On the offensive side, we have two primary objectives. The first one, like Emily said, it’s really around workforce productivity, operational efficiencies, and the second one really is about improving the member experience. On the defensive side, we have a third objective, and that’s really about protecting the credit union from the nefarious uses of AI, and that includes protecting member data. It includes making sure that we’re within compliance. So that’s really our offense and defense strategy and objectives.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, AI on the like you said, the defensive side. And with that combating fraud, we need to fight fire with fire, so to speak, because the bad guys are using it too. And so how did you begin implementing it? And what departments I don’t know, who should Dustin you question, alrighty,
Dustin Montoya
I’m happy to take that on. So for us, it was really important to get that defensive side established, and that really came down to establishing an AI governance team. The AI governance team is really made up of IT, information security, vendor management. We have legal and compliance on there. We bring other stakeholders in as we need to. But those folks, in short order, were able to put some AI standards in place to create an acceptable use policy that all of our staff had to accept. We’re also able to establish some tools for monitoring AI usage so we can actually see what’s coming through our network. And those same tools allow us to block certain things that we don’t like and allow certain things that we do like, and the things that we like are reviewed and approved through our risk assessment process within our AI governance practice, that’s how we started. We quickly evolved into getting the right folks from representatives from different departments together to dream up use cases. And those use cases things that are happening now in departments. All departments right now have access to copilot chat. Some departments have access to things like copilot for office 365 marketing is using AI tools to generate graphics that show up in marketing campaigns and advertising materials. They’ve actually created a mascot that we’ve blown up into life size and introduced to our branch, branches that the mascot’s name is Fred, the Yeti. And we’ve actually created a costume recently. And this is designs that have happened in seconds, and they’ve materialized before our eyes. Lending department, they’re focused on automated loan decisioning. We have a fraud department that’s dealing with fraud prevention, as you might expect, but also know your customer technology. We have our digital team focused on things like member facing chat. That’s something that Emily brought up, and last but not least, our branches, our contact center back office, is focused more on internal facing chat capabilities that are aligned with our knowledge base and Maura, you might have some things to add to the to that use case, because that’s a big win for us. Yeah.
Maura Horn
So we implemented a an AI knowledge assistant for internal staff to find answers quickly from our SharePoint knowledge base and the I’ll tell you, our team had dreamt of this for a while, and the tech finally caught up to our needs. We started looking at it in 2023 we did some pilot testing in early 2024 and we rolled out to the whole org in mid 2024 and it was one of those implementations that just went viral. I mean, it went crazy. How are we? Yeah, I mean, they’re using it on a regular basis. I had put together a business case, and we, we look back on it every quarter and say, did we achieve what we were trying to achieve? And we really, we have, it’s gone viral. And I think it gave people a little bit more confidence to lean in on other AI capabilities, because it was connected back to our knowledge base, their procedures, their everything that was documented for them to do their jobs. They were always searching for things, and this gave them quick access to it. And so we’ve, yeah, we’ve done that. And I think, you know, other implementations, like copilot chat, as Dustin brought up, were really enabled through internal training. So we did some prompt engineering training and some reinforcement on our data protection and some of those human skills. So yeah, we’ve, we’ve had some
Sarah Cooke
member numbers into the, yeah,
yeah, exactly
Sarah Cooke
perfect. So yeah, what is, what is the important, I guess, where’s, what’s an important place to start, when you’re, when you’re working with the staff and training them on using all these things,
Maura Horn
Yeah, some of those things are going to be we want to start with the with the protection. As Dustin said, the defensive strategy of the organization, security is essential in everything that we do. And so, like we started our practice with governance, we do the same things in place for the training, and so we’ve taught people how to keep sensitive information private, and we require people to take some courses on on safely using AI. And at the same time, we’re balancing the encouraging, the use and help. Helping them understand it, but I think we almost always lead with protection.
Sarah Cooke
And so Emily, I’m gonna go on back to you. So when you’re talking with credit union leaders, what are they? What types of questions are you getting about AI, yeah,
Emily Osburn
Yeah. I mean, you get a whole spectrum of questions, but most commonly, many are asking, you know, where do I even start? How do I know if it’s even working? You know, how can I, you know, avoid risk and still innovate, still kind of be one of those front runners here, but you’re really just navigating kind of hype versus reality and just trying to prioritize those use cases. You know, one of the biggest worries is about data quality, member privacy governance, but you know, really also understanding a role that AI could play in compliance and where it kind of complements human judgment.
Sarah Cooke
Any concerns about jobs, anybody can jump on down that one, I guess
Emily Osburn
I would say no. I mean, I don’t think AI is at a point where it would be replacing jobs. I think it’s a great tool to enhance, you know, the knowledge and enhance the capabilities of your staff, but I don’t think it’s at a point where people should really be worrying about, you know, losing their jobs to AI yet. Mm, hmm.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah. Anybody writes something with AI? I’m like, I know. I know. So what sort of results have you all achieved at Elevations? Dustin, I’ll start with you.
Dustin Montoya
Yeah sure. We’re all about results. We’re big into performance excellence. What that means for us is we have KPIs for everything. We certainly put KPIs in place for our AI journey and some of the measurements we started taking this year. So I’d say the you know, in that workforce productivity realm, we look at our saved and across all of AI that we deploy, and we set some pretty ambitious goals at the beginning year that we did, weren’t sure if we’re going to be able to hit by come December. Well, it looks like we’ve already exceeded those by two times, enrolling mid mid year. Part of it is we started to measure it, and we know what we’re measuring, but we’ve really had an effective release of some of these technologies, and a lot of it is due to Maura and her teams helping us from a learning and development point of view and not just the technology point of view. So that’s a big one on our member facing chat capability. We’ve doubled our chat capacity by using some of these technologies, and all while repurposing one of our full time employees. So that’s been a great story. We’ve also saved 3000 hours annually through that process. On the member experience side, it’s a little bit harder to quantify. Sometimes it’s a little qualitative, if you will. But if you look at the members point of view member experience they’re getting. They get 24 by seven access to chat, and they could make basic inquiries and get simple answers after hours. 15% of our chats come after hours. So that’s a new member experience enhancement that we see results on. And then we’re getting a lot more loans processed faster. So those are some of the results that we see. And I think we are seeing and exceeding what we expected. Some different statistics around things, around L and D and others.
Maura Horn
Yeah, I would say from you know, it does impact the member experience, but on the employee experience side, because we gave them an internal Gen AI tool for knowledge. We’re estimating they’re saving a couple hours a week in searching what they used to do. And so it’s we’ve also seen a huge reduction in the handling time of the calls with members, because they have easy access to answers. So they’ve reduced their call handling time by 20 seconds over the last three quarters. And so what we’re really getting to see, though, is the commentary by their managers who are reviewing the calls is it’s it allows a more value add conversation to happen there, and it’s reducing errors on the other end, because they have easy access to the procedures. And so I think what we’re seeing a number of different places that it’s having that effect. We also in terms of learning and development, we’ve offered prompt engineering classes, and we offered them as optional development opportunities for folks, and almost 25% of the organization decided to attend one of these and so they’re reporting back that they’re now using it as part of their daily work. It’s making life easier for them. They’re no longer afraid you asked the question earlier. They’re no longer afraid of it. Losing their jobs, and they’re fine. With telling people now, oh, I use chat GPT or I use co pilot chat to get these answers. And they’re admitting that and sharing prompts with each other.
Sarah Cooke
That’s great, because that’s how we all learn, right? Collaborating, yeah, something credits know a little about. And so Dustin, /you have mentioned that you repurposed an employee. Can you talk a little bit more about that strory
Dustin Montoya
Yeah, I know you mentioned earlier. Are people gonna lose their jobs? I think everybody worries about that, not only with automation technologies, but also with AI. We don’t like to think of it like that. We’re able to move people off of tedious work, repetitive work, onto something that’s more value add. And we this is one of those instances where we’re able to demonstrate that. I think staff sees that, and that kind of calms people into thinking like, okay, my job’s not going away, but I could certainly be moving on to something more important, right.
Sarah Cooke
Instead of checking every box was filled in on this mortgage application. And so Emily, where are credit unions looking next for usage?
Emily Osburn
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So beyond chat bots, we see, you know, institutions looking towards risk management, compliance marketing, as Elevations mentioned with their mascot. I think that’s a pretty cool use case, and nothing pretty, pretty cool, pretty impactful.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, and so Dustin and Maura, does that jive with you guys also?
Dustin Montoya
Yeah, it jives with me. We also have a lot of applications in fraud prevention. There’s a lot of information security tools that we use that have AI in the background that help us detect that pattern. So yeah, it’s used broadly throughout the organization.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, and that you’ve made a point earlier too, so many credit unions didn’t realize they were using it because their vendors were using it already. So what’s next for Elevations? What’s the next step?
Dustin Montoya
Yeah, good question. We’re already starting our strategic planning session for next year and figuring out what we’re going to commit to. We’ve gotten a lot done this year. It’s pretty surprising, but we’re looking forward. We’re looking at personalizing the member experience across all channels, whether that’s a member walking into our branch, or reaching out to us in our contact center, or approaching us within our digital banking experience, we want to have a consistent next best conversation with them. We want to make sure that we’re humanizing that digital experience to the degree that we can, and we’ve been evaluating AI technologies that can help us on that endeavor. So there’s a lot of things that we’re looking to do to kind of evaluate personas, target people in different ways, understand what messages they’re seeking, look at ways to anticipate their needs. So it’s exciting times for us, and then, of course, we’ll be doing continuous improvement on things like fraud prevention and the InfoSec tools that we have, there’s always going to be bad guys coming after us, and we want to make sure that we’re defending the best way we can, that we need to stay on top of technology, figure out how people are leveraging AI and utilize that to the best of our ability.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, and so I don’t know which brave soul wants to take this question. But how should credit unions be approaching the governance part and the training part? What are the safety parameters? Are the guide guidelines that they must haves Emily, why don’t you take it first?
Emily Osburn
I can take it. I think everything that Elevations has mentioned that they’ve done, you know, creating the AI Governance Committee, establishing those acceptable use policies, even providing employee training, whether it’s prompt engineering or just literacy and responsible use training. Those are all you know, great ways to approach governance and training, and then those safety parameters as well.
Maura Horn
And I would add on to that, that a continuous reinforcement needs to happen. We can’t just train once. I think You think it’s easy enough to say what data classification is and teach people, but then reinforcing it all the time to make sure that that keep it top of mind as the tools and technology just improve and become more accessible to them. Yeah, we gotta tell
Sarah Cooke
Somebody something seven times before it sticks right? Yes, if they were paying attention the first time. And so you guys, having gone through it at Elevations, what do you have any like, lessons learned, like, oh, that surprised us, or whatever, as you were going, as you’ve been going through the process.
Dustin Montoya
Sure I could speak to some of that. I’d say technology enthusiasts, when you’re within your organization, can become AI influencers. So you should seek those people out within various departments, because they’re going to use AI to solve different. Problem specific to their area, and once they’ve solved those, those are kind of relatable solutions that people around them can understand, and they then become AI influencers, so they can help kind of build excitement around leveraging the new technology. So I’d say a ground up approach is pretty darn good, and when you’re teaching people how to fish through things like Mars department learning and development. Leading from that point of view, you’re setting them up for success. So I just emphasize that your people in the ranks are going to be the ones that help you elevate your use of AI,
Maura Horn
Yeah, I think that partnership that we’ve created here at Elevations between our Information Technology team, who would be deploying these kind of things, and our learning and development team really affect the ultimate adoption of it. Employees need to feel confident in using the tools and and then do it safely. And so we have a real partnership. I mean, Dustin and I talk all the time about what, what comes next on our adoption roadmap. And we’ve, we’ve put some things out there. And as he said, we we establish champions first, that technology enthusiast group can really be the difference between adoption and not and they actually help with the providing a little bit more peer to peer training, and helping people see the possibilities in the the tools that have been given to them, the use cases within the departments. And so I really we’re also telling a lot of stories, and I think that is a huge lesson learned for people, is have a communication strategy alongside of it, because the stories matter. They need to be able to see themselves in them. They need to see them regularly about what’s happening, and it really just it. It connects people.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, absolutely. I love storytelling. Thank you for saying that. Okay, so as we’re wrapping it up here, I always allow my guests the final thoughts. I’m going to go around do a little family squares, or whatever that show was before I was born. And Maura, why don’t you go first? Would you like to leave our credit union executive audience with?
Maura Horn
Well, I come from our people side, the people side of the team, so I really like to focus on the human side of AI. So the technology is fantastic, but what can humans do now that they can do even better than AI and with the help of AI so that that critical thinking and the service attitudes and those behaviors, we can really focus on those
Sarah Cooke
Awesome, awesome Dustin your turn.
Dustin Montoya
Yeah, I would just say Trust, but verify. I mean this AI stuff’s moving fast, and it’s really easy to get answers quickly and crafts solutions quickly, but critical thinking is going to be more important than ever as this evolves. So let’s not just trust everything for what it seems. Guys still have that critical thinking cap on
Sarah Cooke
Absolutely. I’ve busted a few people for that. Their research is I can’t find it anywhere. Oh, Emily, you’re going to close this out, yeah, what do you have to say?
Emily Osburn
I just want to leave us with, I don’t think AI is going anywhere. It’s not a fad. It’s really going to become an infrastructural shift. You know, the credit unions that are going to be the ones the front runners are really shifting to that, you know, from that tool, think mindset to more of a platform, platform. Think mindset, and you know, the winning credit unions are going to be the ones that are using AI to empower their people and not and not replace them.
Sarah Cooke
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. Y’all. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Thanks.