Digital banking fintech Savana is in no rush to embed AI into its platform as it prioritizes the decision-making intelligence layer for financial institutions.  

Savana has no AI in production and is in a nearly 18-month research and development phase focusing on “operational AI” instead of “advisory AI,” President and Chief Operating Officer Emily Steele told FinAI News. 

“That R&D phase has been focused on what’s really going to make a difference in the industry, to give financial institutions a lift, and we don’t believe it’s the hype that’s out there right now,” she said.  

Savana does not expect advisory AI tools that generate insights or recommendations to move the needle for banks, she said.  

Instead, the fintech is focused on AI to solve the “repeat problems” that cause “disconnected customer experience and poor experiences for bankers,” Steele said.  

“If we think of all the systems that have been acquired over the years inside of an FI, those stacks of technologies aren’t talking to one another and a banker has become the integration layer at a financial institution.”

— Emily Steele, President and COO, Savana

“You have to fix that first in order to fix customer experiences and drive real transformation,” she said.

If a bank uses AI only to generate insights or recommendations, “you’re creating yet another system and we believe that’s propagating an already dire problem,” she added. 

Prioritizing the ‘decision layer’ 

Conversely, embedding a clear “decision layer” into AI tools ensures that “every step in the process where a financial institution is interacting with its customer is already mapped out,” Steele said. 

“It’s routing to the right people; you’ve got the right guardrails, the right compliance,” she said. “If that’s already in place and you have operational AI that isn’t making suggestions but it’s actually doing the execution, that’s where real efficiency comes in.” 

Banks that use Savana’s platform include:

• Battle Bank;
• First Horizon Bank;
• Live Oak Bank;
• Primis Bank; and
• Woodforest National Bank.  

Steele said Savana is prioritizing three AI use cases:

1. Relationship management;
2. Fraud detection; and
3. Customer service.  

The company is demonstrating these AI features to its banking partners so they are ready to deploy them in accordance with their guidelines, policies and workflows, she said. 

“We see operational AI ingesting their policies and procedures so that it’s not a generic model; it’s their model,” she said. “Then let the AI control what can be executed based on the entitlements of the banker.” 

Savana’s approach stands out as other digital banking platforms launch new AI tools.  

For example, Narmi recently launched an agentic AI solution that accelerates and automates account opening processes for financial institutions, according to a July 8 release.  

Candescent, meanwhile, is embedding AI “throughout the customer experience,” with a focus on conversational tools, summarizations and data-driven visualizations, Chief Product Officer Gareth Gaston previously told FinAi News.  

Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas. This inaugural event will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with Piermont Bank founder and Chief Executive Wendy Cai-Lee.