Hey, fintech fam! 💜

We are getting so close to the Fintech Is Femme AI Summit—our team is equal parts excited and overwhelmed as we put all the final pieces together. But it's truly shaping up, and we have so much in store.

And honestly? That mix of excitement and overwhelm feels right. Here's what I've learned covering every tech wave: the hype is real. The fear is real. And somewhere in the middle is where the actual work gets done.

The opposite of anxiety isn't confidence. It's action. And when we act together? Fear gets a lot smaller.

The real risk isn't that AI takes our work. It's that the same few people—mostly men from the same zip codes—decide which jobs matter and who gets left behind. And I don't know about you, but I'm not going to let that happen.

For the first time, I'm taking you behind the scenes to show you what we have in store for the summit. I'm teasing out three core insights we're diving into with our all-star speakers—this is how I prepare for the stage, and I'm sharing some of it with you.

Let's get into it.

#TRENDING

What’s Up In Fintech

#1 AI Adoption Isn't a Tech Problem—It's a Culture Problem

Businesses are integrating AI in waves, but most are skipping the most critical step: teaching their people how—and why—to use it.

Gallup's June 2025 report found that while 44% of employees say their organization has begun integrating AI, only 22% report a clear plan or strategy.

Worse? Just 16% of employees strongly agree that the AI tools they're given actually help them do their work.

The gap isn't technical. It's cultural.

This week, ahead of the Fintech Is Femme AI Summit, I spoke with two fintech leaders— Luan Cox of FinMkt and Anna Joo Fee of Goodfin—who are turning AI from a buzzword into real business infrastructure.

Both are scaling platforms that depend on trust, precision, and efficiency. And both agree on one thing: AI adoption doesn't start with tools. It starts with people.

How FinMkt Made AI Second Nature

Luan Cox didn't begin with the question, "Which model should we build on?" She asked: "How do we make AI second nature for everyone on our team?"

Her 160-person team didn't just "adopt" AI—they trained for it. Every employee, from engineers to account managers, got AI literacy training. They were tested—not to intimidate, but to normalize AI as part of daily workflow. The message was clear: AI isn't replacing you. It's complementing you.

The shift was dramatic. Curiosity replaced fear. And instead of AI living in a silo—something only the tech team played with—it became culture.

Cox's playbook also includes a strategic bet: use open-source models to avoid overdependence on Big Tech, then hire "model evaluators"—a role already in demand—instead of costly model-builders.

How Goodfin Is Building Trust at Scale

Anna Joo Fee's platform puts AI directly in front of end users in high-stakes moments—onboarding, investment flows—where trust is non-negotiable.

Her focus? Consent, clarity, and ensuring AI-guided experiences feel more like a human advisor than a chatbot.

AI can expand access to financial guidance, but only if it's deployed with transparency. Scaling responsibly builds trust—and trust is what turns users into believers.

Why It Matters

Culture is the moat. Gallup data shows employees are 3x more likely to feel prepared for AI when leadership communicates a clear plan. Fluency beats hype.

I've reported before on the Salesforce data showing that both enterprises and consumers are adopting AI in financial services faster than expected. But here's the part that rarely makes the headline: none of that innovation sticks without culture.

You can buy the most cutting-edge model in the world. But if your team doesn't know how to use it—or worse, is afraid to use it—you've built nothing more than an expensive science experiment.

Fintech has always promised access. But access without literacy doesn't scale.

AI literacy gets you adoption. AI fluency gets you impact.

The real test isn't whether fintechs can integrate AI—it's whether they can build cultures where teams, users, and regulators all trust the system enough to grow with it.

But here's where it gets tricky: even when you build that internal fluency, you still have to decide how AI shows up for your customers. And that's where the tension really lives.

#2 AI as Your New Teammate: Building, Not Replacing, Human Trust

AI is entering the workplace with a new identity: not just a tool, but a team member. The question isn't whether to use AI—but how to integrate it without losing the human trust that businesses and communities rely on.

At the Fintech Is Femme AI Summit, three leaders will cut into the tension from very different vantage points: a community-bank executive, a fintech marketer, and a founder reinventing the future of work.

The Bank That Won't "AI Hawaii"

Jennifer Tan of Bank of Hope, a top-100 U.S. bank with $18B in assets and 100+ branches, is blunt: her community won't tolerate a faceless digital future.

Fresh off focus groups in Hawaii, she told me a clear message from customers: "Don't AI the bank. We want you to remember our names, pick up the phone, keep the Old Town feel."

For Tan, that means experimenting carefully—AI in the back office, not the front line.

"The constraints are real," she says. "As a bank, we can't just onboard a vendor like Gemini out of nowhere. We need AI that enhances service, not erases the human connection."

The Danger of "AI Slop"

On the fintech side, Brittany Mosley of Rosy Finch sees a dangerous trend: lazy reliance on AI outputs.

"The biggest mistake we see is assuming the technology is always right," she says. "AI was built to please you, not to be correct. That's why everything's starting to sound the same. If I see one more 'no fluff' tagline, I know exactly where it came from."

For Mosley, AI should be an extension of expertise, not a substitute.

Still, she sees opportunity: Rosy Finch is developing AI-powered growth tools to unify insights across the funnel—cost savings not by cutting humans, but by cutting cognitive overload.

Killing Context Switching

If Mosley warns about overuse, Shashank Singh, founder of Kroolo, is pushing companies to get bolder.

His pitch: Kroolo is an "AI Work OS"—a direct replacement for Asana, Monday, Slack, and Trello.

"Work management is broken," he says. "The average company juggles six to seven productivity tools. People waste hours context switching. That's not productive. That's chaos."

Instead of adding AI as yet another plugin, Singh is collapsing the stack into one integrated system: "Imagine voicing a project brief, and within seconds your entire workflow is built—tasks, metadata, dashboards. That's 70% less time wasted. That's the future of work."

Why It Matters

• Community expectations: In banking and beyond, customers want AI that supports human service—not replaces it.

• Authenticity as strategy: Fintech founders risk losing differentiation if they rely on generic AI outputs. Cultural nuance and community storytelling can't be automated.

• Productivity redefined: The real efficiency gains come from reducing overwhelm—collapsing tool stacks and context switching—not from replacing humans.

Founder Takeaways

1. Don't AI your customers out of trust. Use AI behind the scenes, but keep human touchpoints front and center.

2. Differentiate through authenticity. If your brand sounds like every other AI-powered company, you're already commoditized.

3. Invest in fluency, not sprawl. Replace tool overload with systems that free your team to focus on creativity, not context switching.

The tension is clear: AI can either flatten every brand into sameness—or empower teams to deliver more authentic, human-first service. The winners will be those who treat AI not as a replacement, but as a teammate.

And that human-first approach? It requires more than good intentions. It requires a system. Which brings us to the foundation everything else is built on: trust.

#3 Trust Is the New KPI—Why EQ Is the Growth Engine in B2B

Research from LinkedIn and Ipsos landed on my desk this week, confirming what fintech leaders on the ground are already feeling: trust is the new KPI.

In B2B, trust has evolved from a "soft skill" into the growth engine that powers revenue. And it's not hard to see why. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, global trust in AI companies has declined by 8 points since 2019, from 61% to 53%. In the U.S., the drop was even steeper: 15 points, from 50% to 35%.

It's difficult to trust what you see. With AI-powered speech generation, it's also not always easy to trust what you hear. Deepfake scams have cloned children's voices to extort money from parents. One sophisticated deepfake scam cost a global financial services firm $25 million.

Yet many organizations still treat trust like a campaign, not a system.

The Data

According to the March 2025 LinkedIn/Ipsos benchmark:

• 55% of B2B marketers now use creators, with "building trust" cited as the top goal

• Brands that lead with trust see stronger performance across the funnel—credibility is the new reach

• Employees who say their leadership communicates a clear AI or trust strategy are 3x more likely to feel prepared to adopt it

At the upcoming Fintech Is Femme AI Summit, Middesk's Jackie Wylie and Fundbox's Rina Jariwala will bring fresh perspective on how leaders can operationalize trust inside fast-scaling fintechs.

Trust as a System: Jackie Wylie's Playbook

For Wylie, trust isn't just about compliance. Middesk started as a KYB (Know Your Business) tool—verifying businesses for banks and fintechs—but has expanded to helping companies build confidence with vendors and suppliers.

"Trust is becoming more important because of how easy it is to start a business that looks legitimate," she explains. "It can't just be a handshake anymore. Business is global. Onboarding is digital. We need systems that scale trust."

Trust as EQ in Action: Rina Jariwala's Approach

For Jariwala, trust shows up in the daily work of leadership. With 20 years in banking and four years scaling Fundbox's operations as Chief Operating Officer, she's clear: "IQ gets you the plan. EQ rallies the team to deliver on it."

Execution is how trust is earned. "People talk in meetings about big ideas, but few actually follow through. The ones who do? That's how you build your platform and reputation."

She also highlights the personal dimension: what motivates one employee may not motivate another. "Leaders who can connect at that human level—and adapt—build deeper trust and stronger outcomes."

Why It Matters

Trust is measurable. The emerging "Trust Maturity Index" benchmarks how far a brand has embedded trust across the funnel. What gets measured gets done.

Trust compounds. The "Trust Flywheel" (Attract → Engage → Deliver → Amplify) shows how credibility builds on itself over time.

Trust is human. Static approaches—whether to leadership, compliance, or customer onboarding—don't work anymore. EQ and adaptability are the differentiators.

Founder Takeaways

1. Operationalize trust. Don't treat it like a campaign—build processes that align teams around a measurable trust strategy.

2. Measure what matters. Track execution, follow-through, and customer confidence the same way you track pipeline or churn.

3. Lead with EQ. Credibility isn't just a brand play. It's how you motivate your team, rally investors, and retain customers.

For fintech builders, the message is clear: trust isn't a nice-to-have. It's the system that powers growth—and the leaders who operationalize it will scale faster.

These are the conversations we're taking to the stage at the Fintech Is Femme AI Summit next week. Culture. Trust. Human-centered AI. The tactical pieces that actually make adoption work.

I'll be reporting back on what we learn. Stay tuned.

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Join us every Thursday to keep up with fintech events!

[SAN FRANCISCO] Fintech Is Femme AI Summit

Meet our star-studded lineup (in order of appearance):

1. Asya Bradley, VC Partnerships Lead, Stripe 

2. Anna Joo Fee, Founder & CEO, Goodfin

3. Luan Cox, President & CEO, FinMkt 

4. Megan Gross, Founder, The Bon Soir

5. Drew Glover, Co-Founder, Fiat Growth

6. Laurel Taylor, Founder & CEO, Candidly 

7. Jackie Wylie, Head of Marketing & Sales Dev, Middesk

8. Rina Jariwala, Chief Operating Offier, Fundbox

9. Anne Cocquyt, Founder, The Guild Studio

10. Brittany Mosley, Co-Founder, Rosy Fintech MC

11. Shashank Singh, Founder & CEO, Kroolo

12. Jennifer Tan, SVP, Managing Director, Head of Marketing, Bank of Hope

13. Sibongile Ngako, Chief Compliance Officer, Brex

14. Melissa Magner, Head of Legal, Versana

15. Trisha Kothari, Founder & CEO, Unit21

Start connecting, reaching out, and getting to know these experts you’ll be in the room with!

[VIRTUAL] The Future of Fintech: Best in Show

Fintech Is Femme and Empire Startups are teaming up to spotlight the next generation of builders redefining money as we know it. From lending to payments, wealth to insurance, capital markets and beyond — these are the founders creating the future.

At each event, five early-stage companies will take the stage. A panel of sharp investors will weigh in. And together, we’ll crown fintech’s Best in Show.

This isn’t just a pitch event — it’s where ideas meet capital, culture, and community.

✨ Save your spot:

• Modern Money: WealthTech Showcase — Oct 6, 2025

• Fintech Is Femme: Female-Led Showcase — Nov 10, 2025

_FINTUNES

🎶 MARINA - FINAL BOSS

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📚 Increase your expertise by ordering your copy of my book, Fintech Feminists: Increasing Inclusion, Redefining Innovation, and Changing the Future for Women Around the World.

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That wraps up today’s edition—thanks for reading! Until next week, keep innovating and challenging the status quo. See you Tuesday!

Love,

Nicole 💜