A message from Keith Sultemeier, President and Chief Executive Officer

Published June 20, 2024

Generative artificial intelligence, or gen AI, has taken the world by storm over the past year. According to a recent study by McKinsey, 65% of respondents say they regularly use gen AI, nearly double what their previous survey found ten short months prior.

Given its rise in popularity, I’d like to share more about how this technology could positively impact you as a credit union member.

What is gen AI?

Gen AI refers to a deep-learning computer model that can take raw data, such as all of Wikipedia, and generate new work similar but not identical to the original data. These models have been used for years in statistics to analyze numerical data, but the rise of deep learning has made it possible to extend them to images or speech.

How can gen AI impact my banking experience?

Gen AI could greatly improve many consumer experiences in the future. In the banking industry, most initial applications have focused on improving customer service, and I expect these improvements will continue to build on themselves.

For example, gen AI could serve as a virtual assistant to a loan officer, guiding the officer through the loan application process with helpful suggestions and extracts from member chat history, making the process more engaging and less tedious for the member.

Additionally, potential benefits include improved fraud detection and prevention, applications offering more personalized financial advice and smarter chatbots.

Is gen AI going to mean people will lose their jobs?

Predictions vary on the ultimate impact of gen AI on the future job market. Many jobs will likely be automated, but new opportunities will arise in AI-assisted work. In AI-assisted roles, gen AI models will augment employee performance by summarizing and helping them draw actionable insights from overwhelming amounts of data, something that humans struggle to do without this technology.

For example, gen AI could act as a virtual expert for service representatives, helping them quickly find and develop answers to member questions. So, the time you spend on a call to resolve an issue or find answers to your questions could be cut in half, but you will speak with a real person, not a robot.

We recently launched an internal gen AI pilot at Kinecta to assist our employees in referencing our internal procedures and knowledge bases. Instead of employees searching and reading through documents to find the information they need to help a member, it searches for them, giving them quick and accurate answers in plain language.

At Kinecta, we always look for ways to improve, but we also believe good banking needs a human touch. While we will use AI to improve your experience, we will always provide an easy option for service with a live person regardless of whether you access us in person, over the phone or digitally. We will provide you with both smart technology and personal service and give you the choice of how you wish to be served.

Thank you for being a valuable member of Kinecta.

Keith Sultemeier
President and Chief Executive Officer
Kinecta Federal Credit Union