Main Street AI

How Capital Credit Union Uses AI in Marketing: From Strategy to Adoption

Ankur talks with Steve Zich, Chief Marketing Officer at Capital Credit Union in Green Bay, Wisconsin, about an operator's playbook on deploying AI in the marketing department.The conversation goes deep on personalization done right (vs. creepy), competing with big banks and fintechs on community rather than spend, and the team-level mindset shift that makes AI adoption stick.Guest: Steve Zich, Chief Marketing Officer, Capital Credit UnionHost: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal00:00 Intro00:38 What a credit union marketing operation actually owns01:34 Filtering AI signal from marketing theater — Steve's three filters05:06 Differentiating brand voice in a world driven by AI07:56 Rolling out Jasper12:56 Measuring ROI14:29 Content cannibalization16:45 What good personalization actually feels like21:49 Personal vs. creepy — drawing the line in member outreach24:34 Competing with big banks and fintechs on community + data33:17 The fear narrative around AI38:57 Why generations are shrinking40:23 Wrap#CreditUnion #CommunityBanking #AI #FinancialServices #Marketing #AIStrategy #CMO #DigitalTransformation #MainStreetAI #Multimodal

How Wescom Lifted First Contact Resolution by 34% with Copilot

Ankur Patel interviews Hashim Forrester, SVP of Remote Service Delivery at Wescom Financial — one of the largest credit unions in Southern California.Hashim brings three decades of operations and service delivery experience, and his team has become the trailblazers for AI adoption at Wescom — running Copilot in production, deploying intelligent virtual assistants on the phone system, and building out AI-driven quality assurance.Guest: Hashim Forrester, SVP of Remote Service Delivery, Wescom FinancialHost: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal0:00 Introduction: Meet Hashim Forrester1:02 Inside Wescom's remote service delivery1:54 From single-channel to omnichannel banking3:52 Volume across channels: 1M+ inbound calls5:01 The Anywhere Branch7:46 Omnichannel's knowledge problem10:56 Rolling out Copilot14:54 Why the first Copilot launch failed17:25 Where Copilot ends and member data begins20:46 Three years of intelligent virtual assistants24:46 Moving QA from random sampling to 100% coverage27:48 Prioritizing AI use cases: member-first, not tech-first30:06 Build vs. buy35:27 Driving real ROI39:04 Closing the AI adoption gap44:06 The future: agentic AI, but with humans in the driver's seat

How a Credit Union CIO Picks Vendors in the AI Era

Ankur Patel interviews Jeffrey Staw, Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Firefighters First Credit Union. Firefighters First has one of the most unique membership models in the industry, serving career firefighters and their families exclusively. Jeffrey brings a rare dual perspective, having previously led one of the most influential CUSOs in the country doing large-scale technology work for some of the biggest credit unions in the US.Guest: Jeffrey Staw, Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Firefighters First Credit UnionHost: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal0:00 Introduction: Meet Jeffrey Staw1:01 Inside the firefighters-only membership model3:27 Specialty products for a specialty membership10:23 High tech + high touch at national scale14:25 Best-of-breed vs. single-vendor20:07 Why he says no to AI-first vendor pitches24:27 Deploying Copilot across the org28:02 Closing the AI adoption gap with frontline employees33:37 What RPA can teach us about the agentic wave39:29 The data exfiltration risk everyone's forgetting42:03 Adapting AI to non-technical executives44:40 Lessons from the CUSO world46:54 The 5-year vision

Building an AI Startup in 2026 (the last 3 months changed everything)

At Multimodal, agentic AI is reshaping how the team ships product, hires, and thinks about work itself. In this episode of Main Street AI, Ankur Patel sits down with Ishita Jaiswal, Head of Growth at Multimodal, for an internal look at how a 3-year-old agentic AI startup is operating in a market where the last three months brought more change than all of 2025.What makes this conversation different: just a candid conversation between two operators about what's actually changed. Why prompt engineering is dead. Why planning now takes 25 minutes and execution takes 5. Why Multimodal scrapped entire product lines when Claude and ChatGPT caught up. Why the team is doubling down on agentic coding before hiring more engineers. And why "10x workers" are about to become the norm across every function — not just engineering.Host: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, MultimodalGuest: Ishita Jaiswal, Head of Growth, Multimodal0:00 Introduction: The last 3 months changed everything1:08 How agentic AI reshaped product development at Multimodal3:18 What taste and judgment look like when execution is free5:21 The product lines we scrapped in 2026 (and why)7:30 Why prompt engineering is dead9:50 Planning 25 minutes, executing 5: the new workflow12:48 Working more, not less — the magical powers problem13:57 Inside Multimodal's lean engineering team16:29 How GTM is changing alongside engineering17:51 What we hire for now vs. a year ago20:54 Specialists vs. generalists in an agentic world22:30 What this means for banks, credit unions, and legacy institutions23:57 Closing Thoughts#MainStreetAI #AI #AgenticAI #Startups #ProductDevelopment #ClaudeCode #VibeCoding #FutureOfWork #AIinBanking #Multimodal #StartupLife #EngineeringLeadership

430% Growth and Why Human Connection Wins

Ankur Patel interviews Jed Meyer, CEO of St. Cloud Financial Credit Union — a 5-branch, $425M institution serving 28,000 members in central Minnesota. Jed has driven 400% organic growth in nearly 12 years at the helm, with 2025 marking the best year in the credit union's 96-year history.Jed is focused on using technology to create more human connection, not less. From launching the first-ever CU Digital Asset Vault, to deploying ITMs without removing the human behind the window, to a meaningful difference program that empowers every teller to impact a member's life. Guest: Jed Meyer, CEO, St. Cloud Financial Credit UnionHost: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal0:00 Introduction: Meet Jed Meyer0:52 What drove 400% growth and a record-breaking 20253:08 Competing as the 3rd smallest in a market of 41 institutions5:49 Price, convenience, service11:34 Operationalizing human connection at scale17:58 Where AI fits (and where it doesn't)26:03 ITMs, drive-throughs, and why the human still sits behind the window30:25 How a $400M credit union invests in tech vs. the $5B competitors36:08 The 2026 roadmap: doubling to $1B and 50,000 members41:00 Tech for survivors of domestic abuse42:37 Closing thoughts#MainStreetAI #AI #CreditUnions #CommunityBanking #MemberExperience #DigitalAssets #Blockchain #ITMs #HumanConnection #AIinBanking